


To The End Of Love

by tielan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, F/M, Gen, I had a plan like the cylons, Minor Character(s), Missing Scene, Missing in Action, Post-Movie, Spoilers, and here be dragons, author warning: I don't know where this is going, but it seems to have wandered off the beaten track
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-06-05 04:53:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6690412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Bucky Barnes is a weapon lying around for anyone to pick up, Maria Hill is the weapon nobody will see coming – because the world doesn’t know she exists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. lapses of judgement

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I have seen Captain America: Civil War. 
> 
> I came home from watching the movie, and stayed up until 3:30am writing the start of this. Damn the plotbunnies.
> 
> My first reaction is NEEDS MOAR MARIA HILL. Since neither Marvel Movies, nor fandom is likely to satisfy me on this front, this is the first of my return volleys into the darkness of "Maria? Who The Fuck Is Maria?" so beloved by Marvel fans everywhere.
> 
> And thanks so much to Shorti for giving me advice from Chapter 3 onwards!

_The best explanation of anything eventually involves universality, and therefore infinity.  
The reach of explanations cannot be limited by fiat._

_~[Finite and Infinite Lovers](http://fractalenlightenment.com/33179/life/finite-and-infinite-lovers-changing-the-game-of-love) ~_

 

Maria sits in the car outside the clinic for nearly an hour after her appointment, the advice pamphlet unattended on the dashboard.

Then she starts making calls.

* * *

The Winter Soldier finds her staring at cold grey ruins across a icily sluggish river in DC.

“I hear you’re looking for me.”

“You probably hear lots of things.” Maria turns to look at him over the old fur collar that belonged to her great-grandmother back when the man she’s looking at was a kid. “But, as it turns out, this one’s correct.”

Grey eyes glitter over the rough bristle of a five o’clock shadow. “You’re Steve’s girl.”

She shivers as a gust of wind nips in under the fur and bites at her throat, at her shoulders, at her heart. “Not anymore.”

* * *

After an hour of conversation as disjointed and broken as the ruins of the Triskelion, Maria realises that he’s not entirely the Winter Soldier, but neither is he entirely Bucky Barnes.

The word that comes to mind is ‘compartmentalised’. And she thought she was the only one with that problem.

_So you’re going to put us in a box, like this doesn’t happen?_

_No, I’m going to put it aside and do the job. Because the job still needs doing, Steve._

“I’m not who I was.”

“Nobody expects you to be.”

“Steve will.”

She winces. Because Steve’s expectations are the crux of the problem, isn’t it?

* * *

Maria’s heart is in conflict with her head.

It occurs to her that this is why getting mixed up in Steve Rogers’ personal business was a mistake. It causes...lapses of judgement. Like not setting off her personal alarm so her crew can capture the Winter Soldier and hold him against...

Against what? He was a weapon, a tool of HYDRA. Past tense. Without the hand that grips him, wields him, he’s just a man, trying to get along in an unfriendly world. Isn’t that struggle enough?

She watches him wolf down the sandwich like it’s the last meal he’ll ever have. He didn’t even question what was in it.

Her heart says he’s not a threat. His head says he is.

The problem is that, either way, it goes against her grain to leave a weapon lying around for someone else to pick up.

* * *

“I’ve thought about turning you in,” she confesses at last.

He sits beside her, staring out across the grey water, the wind whipping at the too-long strands of his hair. “Maybe you should.”

But she doesn’t. She can’t. And it’s nothing to do with Steve.

Bucky Barnes is a weapon, yes. But he’s also a fragmented, broken man with more parts of him missing than an arm, and more holes in his psyche than can be comfortably spackled. A part of Maria thinks that he should be getting treatment, or locked away, or even frozen again until they work out what the hell to do with him, but a part of her understands him wanting to get out, to be free, to be something other than what everyone thinks he is or should be.

Isn’t that why she climbed into bed with Steve Rogers? To be more than just the woman who organised everyone else around her?

* * *

“There’s five thousand American in this account,” she tells him, handing over the account and the password. “Try not to spend it all on beer and porn.”

His smile is faint and wry. “Maybe just a couple of pin-ups?” There’s a hint of the charming man from the old Captain America reels in it, but it fades almost as soon as she glimpses it.

She doesn’t give him the business card, just holds it up to show him the numbers and trusts him to memorise it. “If you need help – an exit, a way out, a rescue – call me. It may take me a day or two to scramble the resources to get to you, but I will come and get out of whatever shitstorm you’ve landed yourself in.”

“Why?”

Her mouth twists. “Because I've become a terrible sucker for second chances?”

* * *

Maria stares up at the television in her room, at the grainy picture of Barnes being flashed on every channel, put out on every paper in the world. She's not seeing the reporter earnestly explaining who the Winter Soldier is, just the inevitable hopscotch of disaster that's about to lay waste to the superhero landscape.

As though her world hasn’t already crumbled enough.


	2. second chances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve believes in second chances.

Steve believes in second chances.

It’s who he is.

* * *

The note on Steve’s bed is unexpected – all the more for the familiar scrawl of Bucky’s handwriting. _She offered me sanctuary. Maybe she’ll do the same for you._

No name, no indication of who it could be. But Steve has a sinking feeling in his belly.

_I think we should take a break while I’m gone._

Except that she never came back, and she answered his texts and emails only once. _We’re through. Please stop contacting me._ When his seventh call went unanswered and unreturned, Steve concluded he’d been dumped.

So Steve understood only too well how Tony felt when Pepper left.

But he still calls the number, because this is about more than just him. It’s about Sam and Clint and Wanda and Scott, who followed him because they believed it was the right thing to do. It’s his responsibility to see them looked after.

“This is Specialist Klein.” The accent is American, male, easy. “Who would you like to speak with?”

“Hi. This is Steve Rogers. I’m looking for Maria Hill.”

* * *

Steve doesn’t get to speak with Maria. However, Specialist Klein is extremely helpful. Ten hours after that call, a woman with a bionic eye flies into Wakanda in a brand new Quinjet. From the respectful, yet easy greeting between her and T’Challa, Steve gathers they’ve been previously acquainted.

“Captain Rogers, my name is Akela Amador,” she says, by way of introduction. “I’ve been assigned to support you when you head to the Raft to collect your team-mates.”

‘Assigned to support him’ apparently means providing him with the location and layout of the Raft, the specs for its security system, all the codes and procedures one could ever need when breaking four prisoners out of a high-security, high-tech prison that was made to hold superhumans, and her own services assisting the break-out.

“I was instructed to let you know that Natasha Romanoff made it safely away,” she says as she pilots them across a stormy expanse of sea towards the Raft. “But she has a civilian evacuation that takes priority.”

Steve isn’t going to argue with taking Clint’s family to safety. Better safe than sorry.

* * *

Nestled like a jewel in the base of the hills, the gleaming city of steel and glass is...breathtaking.

“They rebuilt it about...twelve, maybe thirteen years ago.” Clint skims the Quinjet along the transmitted flight path towards the city. “A major military operation went down around then – very hush-hush, although S.H.I.E.L.D was definitely involved.”

Scott stares at the view out the window. “Isn’t Madripoor run by the Hoan cartel? I heard they’re really unfriendly to strangers. What are they doing taking us renegade Avengers in?”

“Still pushing that?” Sam asks drolly.

“I’m easing myself into the title. ‘Avenger.’ I think it’s starting to fit.”

Clint snorted. “Maria must have made some pretty slick friends here. Madripoor is Asia’s version of Switzerland. You don’t just buy in at the ground level.”

Steve doesn’t meet Wanda’s gaze.

* * *

But the woman who comes out to meet them isn’t Maria.

“Pepper,” Steve says, reining in his surprise. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you.” She reaches up on tiptoe to brush a kiss past his cheek, greets the others with smiles and handshakes and, in Lang’s case, with amusement as he babbles at her in his excitement. “You’ve been travelling a while, so come inside and we’ll get you quartered.”

They’re inside before she glances back at Steve and says, “The news is muted, but I heard it got bad out there.”

“I made it worse.” Steve can say that now, in grief and regret. But it was necessary and he did it. Now, he just has to live with the consequences. “There were reasons.”

Her smile is as lovely as ever, and yet...muted. “Only a madman acts without reason, Steve. The question is whether the reasons are enough for you and those who matter to you.”

* * *

They’re given a basic tour – very basic, and shown to a set of quarters that’s set up rather like the Avengers facility was – living spaces, sleeping and personal spaces, a training room and armory, offices.

Someone was expecting them.

_Maria,_ Steve thinks, shoving his issues aside. He can say her name; it’s been over and done with for months.

Clint goes to make contact with his family. Sam espies the foozeball table and challenges Lang to a game. Wanda gives Steve and Pepper a too-perceptive look and drifts over to a set of windows overlooking the city, which is starting to sparkle in the last light of day and the first glitter of night.

And Steve finally asks the question that’s nagging him. “Where’s Maria?”

Pepper’s gaze is very steady. “She doesn’t want to see you, Steve. I hope you understand that.”

It’s been a long few days, so Steve looks steadily back at Pepper. “Where’s. Maria?”

* * *

The woman sitting, barefoot, on the mats with her head in her hands and her shoulders heaving is not the woman he expected to see.

Pepper turns around, but when he doesn’t move back, her eyes narrow. She shoves him out of the observation room – nearly slams him against the other side of the corridor with a strength that is definitely more than human. And there’s fire – _literal fire_ – in her irises when she looks at Steve before she seems to realise what she’s done and damps it down, dropping her hands. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

Maria? Or her? Steve stares. “What happened? To her? To you?”

Her mouth pinches at the corners. “It turns out that one of the things Extremis does is rewrite itself into an individual’s DNA, so it can later regenerate itself.” Pepper glances at the room they’ve just exited – an observation room to a rehab gym. “Maria, on the other hand, has something rather more human - ovarian cancer.”

* * *

Her eyes widen when she sees him, but she turns to Pepper. “I told you to keep him out.”

“And I told you it would be as effective as holding back the tide.”

The by-play aches – trust, amusement, affection. Steve focuses on what’s important. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you run away?”

Maria looks him for a long moment, and then the breath goes out of her, the way it used to when she didn’t want to argue anymore. She looks to Pepper. “Did you want to explain the parallels, or should I?”

“What parall—?”

“Neither Maria nor I want to live smothered, Steve. We’re women, not hothouse flowers.” Pepper’s sympathetic, but she’s also inexorable. “But it’s not in your nature to step back, either your nature or Tony’s.”

“So you took yourself out of the equation.” It’s said to both of them, but he’s looking at Maria, and Maria answers him.

“Yes.”

* * *

The bag takes his pummeling with a resilience he wishes his heart felt.

He didn’t think this was going to be a second chance; but something in him hoped.

 

 


	3. one is one and all alone

When she was first diagnosed, Maria imagined it would be a long, solitary journey back to health – assuming she beat the cancer.

She hadn’t really expected others to care.

* * *

Pepper calls just as Maria wakes from her post-cradle snooze. “How are you feeling?”

“A little tired. Helen says that will be usual for the next few days.” While the cradle can heal and remake new tissue, cancer is a problem, since the essential template for the building blocks – the body’s cells – are already mutated and the last thing they want is to mutate them further. So they’re using the cradle to check that all the cancerous mutations are gone. The rest of it, though, is ordinary human healing.

So far, so good.

“I met with Jessan this afternoon. She wants to meet our renegades.”

“Do I need to be present for that?”

“No. I arranged the appointment for the day before you come home from Seoul. And we’re going through the Accords Limitations and Modifications this afternoon.” Pepper’s smile is nearly a grimace. “I wish you were doing this – you’ve got more experience—”

“You’re one of them, now,” Maria reminds her. “You need to be comfortable with where the lines are drawn – and the circumstances under which you’ll cross those lines.”

“I’m not going to be a superhero, Maria.”

“Maybe not. But if they need your skills in the field, are you really going to say no?”

Pepper’s mouth twists, and Maria regrets pushing the point a little. But Pepper understands only too well that sometimes the job needs to be done and you’re the only one to do it. Better to know where the lines are, so when they have to be crossed, you know how far you’re willing to go.

“Yukio called, too. She’s coming in next week to get you back into training.”

Maria winces. The tiny red-haired woman is a slavemaster. “I’m guessing putting her off won’t work this time?”

This time, Pepper’s grin is distinctly malicious. “No more than putting Steve off did.”

* * *

Maria always knew she’d have to deal with Steve sooner or later. She just hoped it would be later.

“According to the United Nations Head of International Security, you – as individuals and a collective – are considered a Level 1 threat to Earth’s security. The Avengers have the official brief to apprehend you on sight. So do international law enforcement and the military of any country that signed the Accords.”

“I’m guessing Madripoor didn’t sign the Accords?”

“Good guess.” Maria looks at Sam. “As Jessan would have told you, you have sanctuary here until you work out what you want to do with yourselves.”

Lang sits forward. “And the options are...?”

“Going under. Relocation and identity reassignment. You’ll be given funds and somewhere to live, there’ll be employment opportunities, the ability to blend in. You’ll be on your own – this is a fledgeling operation and we don’t have the resources to follow you up. But it’s a life, of sorts.”

“Better than a prison cell,” Barton mutters.

Maria doesn’t say that not all of them can take that option.

Sam probably could, but he’s followed Steve for two years now and been an Avenger for nearly a year of that. Yes, he could go back to counselling, patching up broken wings and sending them back out into the world, but to do that and not long for the skies himself? Working at the VA was a stopgap measure, something that was good enough, but Sam’s a soldier in his heart. He needs a mission.

Barton definitely could do it, but he won’t. If he’s going to settle down, he’s going back to Laura and the family – but even that’s a risk in and of itself, and he won’t take that risk back to his family.

Lang might, although Maria doubts it. Even if not for the matter of his daughter, he’s tasted the thrill of doing something important, something – hah – bigger than him.

Neither Steve nor Wanda have this option, and Maria states this up front. “You’re too well known and too easily identified. The others have human limitations; you don’t. If you’re recognised – and given that neither of you are the hiding type – then you’ll be taken in again. That, or the body count to get you out is going to make Nigeria look like a picnic in the park. I think we can agree that we’d like to avoid that.”

Wanda’s a little white around the lips, but she nods. Steve doesn’t take his eyes from her face, just asks, “So what’s our option, then?”

“Behind Door Two: working for Pepper and myself. You’ll have noticed this place is set up very much like the Avengers Facility in New York. The Hoans have significant financial and military resources, and in partnership with Stark Industries technology and S.H.I.E.L.D experience in logistics and intelligence, it was to be a refuge and a training location, either for superhumans being hunted down, or for Avengers who crossed the Accords.” Her smile is brief and tight. “We just didn’t think it was going to be used this soon.”

“You saw the Accords coming.”

Maria meets his gaze without flinching. It seems they’re going to have this out now, with an audience. Ah, well. She hoped. “Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell us what was ahead.”

“I didn’t know what was ahead.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it, Maria.”

“The Avengers were never going to operate without oversight indefinitely, Steve.” He used her name, she thinks, she can use his. “It was one thing while you were hunting Loki’s sceptre, gathering in Stark Tower. You had leeway back then, thanks to the Chitauri invasion. But after Sokovia, once the facility was formalised, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to slap some rules on you.”

“And you didn’t argue this?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D operated under the World Security Council. Fury didn’t always like it, but he worked around the strictures. So, no, I didn’t argue it. I didn’t imagine they’d try to leash you to the extent that they did.”

“You didn’t tell me what was going on.”

And now this isn’t just about the Accords. Maria isn’t sure why she’s surprised. Steve doesn’t think the way other people do. There’s no line between personal and important for him. It’s not just being a product of his time, it’s  _him_ . It’s why Erskine chose him, why he became the icon he was, why he was leader of the Avengers, and why the superhuman landscape is in such chaos now.

She addresses the Accords, because she’s damned if she’s going to air their personal past in front of the others.

“Would you have listened? Could you have held back once you found out what they were going to do? Would it have changed _anything_ you did?”

“Yes.”

She gives him the same look she gave him when he’d declared that he’d hang up his shield if Ultron brought peace. And, like last time, he looks away.

“Uh, kids,” Sam drawls, “Are we going to have to sit you in separate corners until you apologise?”

Clint lifts a hand. “Hey, I’m the dad around here; that’s my line.” He sits up. “Let’s hit the target, Maria. You’re starting your own Avengers project.”

“Well, we had an acronym for it.” It was mostly a joke, but Pepper nixed it. “But, essentially, yes. It’s more like S.H.I.E.L.D than the Avengers – covert operations rather than overt ones. But the goals are the same; deal with the problems that conventional forces aren’t equipped to deal with, without regards to borders or politics.”

“The spirit of the law rather than the letter.” Wanda looks up from the patterns she’s drawing on the table. “Is there a Door 3?”

“If you can think of a Door 3, then you’re more than welcome to do so. ”

Wanda nods. “You believe we can do this?”

“I think you’re going to have to if you don’t want to end up back in the Raft.”

* * *

On the second morning of Maria’s training with Yukio, Clint turns up in comfortable sweats and a threadbare tee. He doesn’t say anything, just watches them as they move through the stretches, then starts his own warm-up, rather rougher and more energetic than the one the women are doing.

Yukio lifts a querying eyebrow at Maria, who shrugs and just follows through on the stretch. Although Helen is positive about the cradle’s results, and all the scans came back promising, Maria’s still tired from the initial treatments – chemo, medication, and operation. Which is why Yukio is going easy on her.

She’s still exhausted by the end of the session though, and gets to watch Yukio take on Clint, hand-to-hand.

It’s not a very long fight. Yukio is younger, has seen more vicious close-up fighting than Clint, and knows more than enough techniques to deal with someone heavier and stronger than her.

Clint takes his defeat with good humour, although he puts up a hand as Maria comes over to check on him. “I feel old.”

She hauls him to his feet and pats him on the shoulder. “Newsflash, Barton. You _are_ old.”

“And you’ve been keeping secrets.”

Yukio laughs, a sharp gurgle that holds no apologies in the glance she slants at Maria. “I shall leave you to your reprimand. Come and see me when you are done.”

Maria waits as the tiny assassin strides out of the training room, then stares down the man in front of her. “You’re not exactly able to talk about hiding secrets, Clint.”

“I didn’t hide my family from you.”

“Everyone’s a critic.” Maria looks him in the eye; they have a long history, she respects that, even if she disagrees. “I couldn’t afford having you all breathing down my neck. I needed...space, and the Avengers aren’t condusive to that.”

“I wasn’t an Avenger at the time.”

She tilts her head. “You had a newborn to worry about. And Sokovia was hard enough; save the world, suffer the collateral damage.”

“So we were the collateral damage in your shutout policy? Good to know where we stand.”

“You do realise that none of you would ever have known until after the fact if you didn’t need sanctuary?”

“And that hole’s just getting deeper.” He looks her in the eye, a sharp and seeing gaze. “Have you got it beat?”

“So far, so good. The operation got most of it, and the chemo and drugs are cleaning up the remainder. Helen is monitoring me every second week.” It’s less than an hour to Seoul from Madripoor and in a Quinjet, it’s an even faster trip, and the cradle is _good_. As Clint has reason to remember.

“Right. Who flies you out to Seoul?”

Maria’s answer is sharp. “Should I let you know the next time I have an appointment?”

“Yes, you should.” Clint’s expression holds all the dangerous focus of the operative they called Hawkeye even before he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. He looks at her like she’s a junior agent who screwed up, and he’s the SO.

She _feels_ like the junior agent who screwed up and has been reprimanded by her SO. And she doesn’t like it any more now than she did back then. “Did you need to see my rehabilitation schedule? Check that I’m attending all my appointments?”

“No.” He walks over to where he dumped his hoodie and yanks it on. “I’m happy to give you all the space you want, Hill, just so long as you don’t think you’ll be rid of me.”

* * *

Sam arrives with a box of orchids. “Not from me,” he assures her as he hands over the box. “I’m just the delivery guy. Who’s Nathan?”

Maria wonders why today, of all days, Nathan decided to send just a signed tag rather than an enclosed card. “A friend.”

“A friend who sends you orchids on black velvet tied with gold ribbons?” Sam leans one shoulder against the doorjamb, a smile teasing his mouth. “He’s not angling to be just a friend for long.”

“He wasn’t always just a friend.” Maria brushes her hand the length of the box as she goes back to her desk, “What do you need, Wilson?”

“To know how you’re doing for a start.” He holds up his hands when she fixes him with a glare. “I don’t need the gory details. Just the status report for today. Call it concern for a friend.”

“I’m fine.”

The short and automatic response doesn’t provoke his denial, the way it might do for one of the others. He just bobs his head. “Good to hear. I also came to find out if there was something I could do.” He saunters in to sprawl in the chair, rubbing a corner of his goatee with one long finger. “I mean, I can only whip the Tic Tac’s ass at foozeball so many times. And you know and I know that operations is just the tip of the iceberg. We didn’t see that so much at the Avengers facility, but I know there were reams of techs and analysts collecting data and processing it long before we got the call to suit up. So either you’ve got data crunchers buried in catacombs beneath this place, or you’re doing it yourself. Which, I hear, you’re not supposed to be doing all day and night and most particularly at,” he checks his watch, “three in the afternoon.”

Maria regarded him with some exasperation. “Gospel of Pepper?”

“She may have put the bug in.” Sam quirks a grin at her – the brief version that intrigues and charms and has made more than one woman smile tentatively back. “But scuttlebutt is that you’ve been running a lot of this on your own.”

“Where scuttlebutt has curly hair and a crush on Rogers?”

“That’d be the one.” Sam runs a hand over his scalp. “Although the way he talks, he’s got more of a crush on—” He pauses and shakes his head. “Never mind. I’m asking for something to do. Even filing.”

“Filing?”

“Hey, I don’t like it, but I know it has to be done.” He sits up and folds his hands in his lap. “So, gimme.”

Maria doesn’t reference the aborted mention of Sharon Carter, whom Klein idolises. She’s not an idiot; she can read between the lines – especially when the spaces are provided by Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. And that was the point of putting Sharon in the neighbouring apartment, wasn’t it? Nothing as tawdry as a honeypot, just a pretty young woman to emotionally engage Steve back into the world and keep an eye on him while she was at it.

Looks like the emotional engagement part worked anyway. Eventually.

Instead she takes her tablet, pulls up several files that she think might be up his alley – medical and psych notes – and hands it to him.

“These situations have been flagged due to similarities to various enhancement projects that HYDRA was trying to develop a couple of years ago. If they’re making supersoldiers, we need to know ASAP. The medical tests from Centipede and the other projects are in the database – you should have access by now – review them and let me know if anything pops.”

“Can do.” Sam stands, stretches. “Although I thought the line of thinking these days leaned towards tech advantages?”

“It does. That doesn’t rule out someone revisiting any of the biomodification projects. And, frankly, with the way things are going, I’m more worried about the biomods.”

“You can take Stark’s tech away, but Steve’s still Steve. Got it.”

“And evermore will be so,” Maria murmurs after he’s gone, her eyes on the gold ribbon over the orchids with their white petals and magenta hearts. She sighs and tells herself she’s complicating things. Nathan’s a good man – one of the reasons she was attracted to him in the first place. She knows he expects nothing from her. He’d _like_ everything, but Maria doesn’t have an ‘everything’ to give him.

She’s not sure she ever did.

* * *

Maria isn’t there when the Avengers meet the Ten Tigers, thanks to an over-long call with General Ross during which she lies through her teeth

“Expect a call from him within the hour,” she tells Pepper on her way down to the training room. “And make sure you have a drink waiting for you at the end of the call.”

“The Tigers came while you were speaking with Ross. I made introductions and sent them all over to the training facility.”

When she gets to the training facility, the fight is already in progress. Two men moving back and forth across the mats like dark and blond lightning. As she leans a shoulder against the door, Jason dodges a punch, but uses Steve’s forward momentum to haul him heels over head in a move that would sprawl someone with lesser reflexes. Steve, however, tucks and rolls, up on his feet and is turned to block Jason’s retaliating blow, almost faster than the eye can follow.

Maria glances at Barton, who’s just by the door. “How long have they been at it?” She nods at several of the Tigers she recognises, giving them brief smiles.

“Coming up to ten minutes. Which is pretty good against Steve. Not as strong or as fast, but none of Cap’s hits have stuck yet so your guy’s doing something right.”

Someone’s watch beeps, and both men step back, acknowledging the time call.

Jason bows, courteous to a worthy opponent. After a moment, Steve does the same, then offers his hand. “You’re good. How long have you been in covert ops?”

“Twelve years.” Jason glances at Maria, grinning. His English is excellent, but he still retains the song-like accent of his native Malay. “Give or take a few?”

“You were just out of Basic Training.”

“And you were not much further,” he says with a laugh. “I thought I would try your Avengers on the mats. It will best determine their strengths and weaknesses.”

“We’re not all of us fighters like Steve,” Sam points out.

“ _None_ of us are fighters like Cap.” Lang grins. “I’m not ashamed to say it.”

Jason nods. “And yet the way you react tells us how you think, your first instincts, your style. If we are to be your support operations, it will help for us to be aware of these things.”

Knowing how Jason works, Maria agrees. “Pair up with the Tigers, one on one, and they’ll assess you as they go.” She glances over at Wanda and nods reassuringly. The young woman continues to look daunted, but she steps out onto the mat.

“It’s good to see you well again, Maria.” Jason reaches out and skims a hand through the shaggy edges of her hair with a wink to match her glare, then steps back when she bats his hand away. “We’ll talk later, yes?” He starts pairing the Tigers up with Clint, Wanda, Sam, and Lang, calling instructions to his men as he goes.

Steve comes over, a towel now slung around his neck. “Twelve years ago, when S.H.I.E.L.D was involved in a major military operation in the area?”

She’s not surprised he’s put the pieces together. “I wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D then, just a Marine on leave with a couple of friends.”

“And they owe you that much? To do all this?” He gestures at the training centre, indicating the facility and everything that’s in it. “What do they get out of it?”

“Information. Money. Freedom.” Maria glanced at him, working out how much to tell him. “The woman who took out Madripoor the first time went by the name of Madam Hydra. We still don’t know the extent of her ties to HYDRA, but considering the first dressing-down I ever got from S.H.I.E.L.D was from Alexander Pierce for handing the city security keys back to the Hoans, I’d say it was a Xanatos Gambit – we lose, they win; we win, they win.”

“What did HYDRA want with the city?”

“A financial base. A defensible city-state. And this facility.” She watched as one of the Tigers put Sam flat on his back, then offered a hand up. “Seven levels down, there’s a Faraday cage room – electromagnetically shielded – with several hundred 2000-era supercomputers, a screen, and a USB port.”

“Zola.”

“It was supposed to be a secondary installation – they got as far as setting it all up, but never managed to install him. Luckily for us. Two hours after Nat dumped S.H.I.E.L.D files on the internet, Jessan called me. Stark Industries wasn’t the first multinational to offer me a job after DC, just the best option.”

He makes a noise like a huff of exasperation. “So how many other organisations and people are you working for, Maria? Who are you loyal to?”

She stifles the frustration that always rises when her loyalties are questioned. One way or the other, no matter what she does, or how she pays for it, it seems she’ll always lose. Out on the mats, Wanda blocks a blow with her telekinesis, then flips the Tiger, who twists midair to land back on his feet, a feral grin on his face. 

“Peggy once asked me that question in this city.” Maria can still see the white-haired woman with the eyes like flint sitting on a battered couch down in the Old City tenements. _**Semper fi**_ _, yes?_ _But who are you faithful_ _ **to**_ _, Marine_?

“Peggy...” The silence and stillness beside her says that wound still aches. “ _Peggy_ pulled you into Madripoor?”

“It’s a long story.”

It’s a moment before he says, “I hope you’ll tell it to me someday.”

“Maybe.” She doesn’t offer anything more than that. He doesn’t press it. But the silence still weighs down between them, so Maria asks a question she’s wanted to ask for a while. “How was the funeral?” She sent a floral wreath but couldn’t manage the journey herself. And, too, playing least-in-sight seemed like a good idea with the Accords signing so close to the horizon.

Just as well.

“Full,” Steve says after a moment. “Formal. Sharon spoke the eulogy.” A quick glance from under her lashes shows the tide of colour up his neck. “I didn’t know they were—”

Tempted to ask, _Have a thing for Carters, Steve?_ Maria decides the question skirts rather too close to topics that she doesn’t want to discuss or think about. “It’s not an easy thing to live up to Peggy Carter.”

The nudge at her shoulder surprises her. “You nearly did, though.”

Her cheeks grow hot. She’s never thought of her ascent to Fury’s right hand as living up to the legend of Peggy. She just did what was necessary – and yes, she hoped to be Director someday, but she’d never thought of it as some kind of comparison.

And what does it say that she’s both pleased and infuriated to be compared to the woman Steve Rogers is always thought to have lost?

* * *

Maria leans back in her chair as the door slides shut behind Natasha.

“Just got in?”

“An hour ago. It took me that long to get up here. I’m only surprised I haven’t bumped into Fury yet.” The Black Widow drops into the visitor’s chair, graceful and deadly. “S.W.O.R.D?”

“Pepper vetoed it.”

“I can’t imagine why.” She studies Maria, her gaze sharply critical. “You’ve lost weight, your hair’s a mess, and I don’t want to think about the last time you slept properly. When are you next for Seoul?”

Maria isn’t surprised that Natasha did the homework reading. “Next week. Clint’s already offered to fly me over. His family?”

“They’re moved and safe. Laura’s a little annoyed, but she’ll forgive him. Eventually.”

The words are more clipped than they should be, given how fond Nat and Laura are of each other. Which means the conversation isn’t about Clint and Laura. Maria mentally braces for the storm as she says, “So will you eventually forgive me?”

Natasha leans forward, the lovely face still and serious. “You ran away, Maria. You ran away from  _us_ . You didn’t tell anyone you had cancer, just disappeared with barely a note to say ‘so long and thanks for all the fish’. If Pepper hadn’t flagged your medical records, then nobody would have known where you went or what happened to you.”

“I’ve gone underground before for longer periods,” Maria reminded her. “So have you.”

“Missions are recorded – where and why. Contact is regularly made and the outcomes are evaluated.” Natasha leaned forward. “You didn’t just go underground, Maria, you _ran away_.”

“And what else was I supposed to do?” There was nothing Natasha could say that Maria hadn’t already thought in the last few months. “Live with the Avengers looking over my shoulder once they found out?”

“We’re going to be doing that anyway.”

“The world needed the Avengers. It still does. And I needed to fight this battle alone.”

“Why?”

The blunt question confuses her. “Why?”

“Why did you need to fight your cancer alone?”

“It’s not something that anyone _else_ could have done—”

“But we could have helped. Flown you to appointments. Brought you flowers. Supported you.” Her gaze flicks to the lilies in the vase – his week’s flowers from Nate – then back to Maria. “So I’m wondering... Was it the cancer? Or was it Steve?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did he scare you? Or did he _terrify_ you?” At Maria’s silence, Nat settles in, like a cat on a warm, comfortable lap. “It was Steve, wasn’t it?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Maybe not.” Nat smiles with an edge that’s almost vindictive. “But it’s reassuring to know that you’re scared of at least one thing in the universe.”

There are plenty of things that scare Maria. A triumphant Black Widow isn’t one of them. She doesn’t bother arguing the point with Natasha. Maria isn’t of a mind to fight right now – either this battle or any other. She doesn’t have the energy for it, or the inclination.

So she sighs. “Finished gloating yet?”

“Not by a long shot. But I’m willing to leave it for now. What you want to know is whether I’ll stay around, be part of S.W.O.R.D.”

“We’re not calling it that.”

“And I’ve learned that it’s not the names that count in the scheme of things.” Natasha stares her down. “I would have thought you’d support the Accords.”

“I wasn’t asked to.” 

“You weren’t asked to?”

The anger has almost faded – enough that her smile is merely cynical and not bitter. Six months and cancer gave her a new perspective on the situation – that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. “Back when they were still working out the possibilities of the Accords, Fury tried to put a word in, and got pushed back. He offered my name as a potential resource during the drafting, and it was rejected.”

“Oh, burn.”

“According to the legislators we were too close to it all, too much a part of the problem in the first place, meddling with things we didn’t know or understand. And our ties with the Avengers were seen as a liability, not an asset.”

“So you turned what they thought of as a liability into an asset.” Natasha’s glance takes in the office they’re sitting in. “Clever.”

Maria doesn’t say it’s what she’s done ever since she joined S.H.I.E.L.D - the woman nobody wanted, the agent nobody noticed, the unmemorable, undistinguished background to more important men, more heroic figures. Maybe it’s not the job someone else would have done, but it’s what she had to hand, and she used it to the best of her abilities.

“Maybe Steve should be grateful that they didn’t recruit you for the Accords.”

“Maybe he should.” She folds her hands on the desk and regards the other woman coolly. “So are you in or are you out?”

“Oh, _in_ , of course.” Natasha makes it sound like it was decided _ages_ ago. “If nothing else, it’ll enable me to keep an eye on _you_ , Maria.”

Like she needs another keeper. Maria resists the urge to grind her teeth – or throw a pen at the Black Widow.

But it’s close.

* * *

That night, dragged into the main lounge by Pepper for ‘social drinks’, Maria glances up while tapping her drink to Barton’s, meets Steve’s steady gaze, looks away.

The truth is, she never expected any of them.

 


	4. a consequence of identity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has taken a left turn at Albuquerque, as Bugs Bunny once said. I'm not entirely sure where it's going anymore, or even the genre that it's going to be. It was a straight-up romance, but now...I'm not entirely sure it's not going to end up an action-thriller. I guess this is going to be an interesting journey for us all!
> 
> Warning: this chapter is unbeta'd, so any errors or issues are mine and mine alone.

Who is Steve Rogers in the new world he’s made with his choices?

Still a good man. Still a soldier. Still a leader of his team.

Still working it all out.

* * *

Beating up the punching bag is something familiar, even if the facility doesn’t feel quite right. He’s looked it over, top to toe, discussed it with Pepper, and Sam, and Natasha when she arrived, and everything’s as it should be, well-equipped and secure.

Yet he’s restless, waking in the night and going out running through the tracks in the hills above the city. Sometimes he’s joined by Sam, occasionally by Barton, once by Lang. Occasionally, he overtakes various members of the Ten Tigers taking the trail. The women seem to prefer the jogging machines, although Natasha occasionally joins him.

Once, he comes in just as Maria’s coming out.

He holds the door open for her, gesturing her through, wondering if she’ll roll her eyes and remind him that she has arms. But she simply walks past, as though he was nobody – an acquaintance or stranger. Steve nearly reaches out a hand to stop her, to have the conversation she’s avoiding – that _they’re_ avoiding. Because he could go to her office anytime, step inside, close the door, force her to acknowledge him and what she did. He could. But he doesn’t want to. He wants her acknowledgement without having to force her hand – just one thing that he doesn’t have to fight for. Is it too much to ask?

Apparently it is.

“Captain,” she says in a cool, professional voice that freezes his muscles and his tongue. He only manages to nod at her as she slips into the misty jungle and her footsteps are swallowed up by the humidity within a half-dozen yards.

Steve lets the door fall closed between them with the sensation of an opportunity missed, and goes into the facility, a little shaken.

Is he still Captain America without the shield?

It’s an odd thought to have _now_ , when he’s been at this facility for nearly two weeks as most people refer to him casually as ‘Cap’ - even the Tigers as they come to know him. It never bothered him before Maria said it in the cool distant tones he remembers from the days after New York, when she still blamed him for Coulson’s not-death and was resisting anything to do with the Avengers initiative.

He finds himself at a punching bag, slamming his fists over and over into the solid weight with a sense of dissatisfaction and discontent – another familiar feeling.

More echoes: the empty days after waking up from the ice, a stranger in a strange land, trying to make sense of all the years he’d lost, of all the people he’d loved who were gone. Then, he’d clung to the shield, to the duty that weighed down on him as heavily as the responsibility Erskine laid upon him all those years ago – to be a good man.

Now the shield is gone.

His past is also gone. Peggy is dead, Bucky is in stasis.

And Steve Rogers is no longer Captain America.

“You live in the past like a tortoise in its shell.” The voice, high and girlish and accented, startles him enough to have him spin around. The red-haired woman who calls herself only ‘Yukio’ moves on silent feet across the mats, her eyes regarding him in that disconcerting way she has, like he’s a book and she knows the ending. “But you are no tortoise.”

“Ms. Yukio.”

Her laughter tinkles through the room, bright and giggly. “It is only Yukio, Captain Rogers. Yukio-san, if you feel formal.”

“Then I’m only ‘Steve’,” he tells her. “Or Rogers- _san_ if you’re feeling formal.”

“I am feeling the desire for a fight.” The smile fades from the small, triangular face, leaving her solemn. “If you would join against me.”

Steve doesn’t say it wouldn’t be a fair fight. He’s seen her against Barton a number of times, and she may be small, but she makes up for it in moves. Besides, he’s just been for a run and punched up a bag, so it should be rather more equal...

He thinks that until she lays him flat on his back on the mats in ten moves, and peers down at him with the staff. “Perhaps now you will _try_?”

“I apologise, Yukio- _san_.”

“Don’t apologise,” she tells him, rolling her eyes in the face of his amusement. “Do _better_.”

He does better. Sort of. This time it takes her nearly five minutes to take him down, and although he rolls to his feet immediately, ready to go again, Steve’s well aware that if he was anyone else, he’d be finished.

It’s her style, he thinks – she uses leverage rather than brute force, tripping him up, unbalancing him, staying low and making him work harder to meet her, reach her, where usually he has the advantage in reach, strength, speed. Still, once he has the hang of her moves, he can compensate in speed for what he doesn’t have in flexibility...

“Better,” she says approvingly when he finally manages to break through her guard. “This is not your style, but you are learning.”

She folds her hands in front of her and bows. Steve mimics the movement, although he feels clumsy doing it – maybe that’s just in his own head, because she doesn’t seem to find it odd. And new isn’t wrong, just...new.

“Going to have to try a few new things in future.” It’s said more to himself than to her, but she nods as she rises.

“Your instinct is to reach for what is no longer there. If you do not learn differently, it will be your downfall.”

Something about her inflections seems odd; it takes Steve a moment to realise that she’s not just talking about the shield, and she’s not just being sage-like in the warning. He’s familiar enough with Wanda to know when someone’s seeing a little more than they’re letting on, but what does she mean?

“You have lived in the past too long, chasing your ghosts. But they do not need your protection anymore.”

_Bucky sleeping under the glass; cold, yes, but waiting. And T’Challa’s people would protect him with their lives and the spirit of the Black Panther, while Steve stepped out into the world with no ties to his past – neither shield, nor buddy, nor lost love – only the future ahead of him._

Steve lifts his brows in surprise and a little pique. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, now you are in the present, but you have not yet set your future.” She regards him for a long, uncomfortable moment. “You are an unsheathed blade, Rogers- _san_. You must be wary of what you sever in your zeal.”

Steve thinks of the Accords, of the bitterness staining Tony’s voice as he limped away with Bucky, of Sharon’s car driving away from that underpass, taking her to a life on the run. “I think it’s too late for that.”

Yukio shrugs with one shoulder, careless. “It is never too late. Unless you are dead. _Then_ it is.”

* * *

Madripoor feels a lot like New York, only with fewer tourists.

“Not so much for them to see,” Jason says, stretching his legs out across the footpath. “Some architecture, but it’s not everyone’s thing. Finance and businesspeople in and out all the time. Mostly from around Asia, but also other places.”

The leader of the Ten Tigers is taking Steve out the first time to show him around and give him a feel for the city. Steve nearly asked if the man was his guard, but Jason is casual about what there is to do, and his manner implies that Steve will be coming out here unchaperoned next time.

Steve’s not so sure. The mask itches.

_Thought you’d be used to wearing a mask,_ Barton commented when they were being shown how to use the facial simulators. 

_A mask, yes. Not a new identity._

Steve Rogers may no longer be Captain America, but he’s very recognisable. The masks have been provided to enable anonymity, which they can take or leave as they please. However, both Pepper and Jessan Hoan made it quite clear that, while Madripoor hasn’t signed the Accords and is therefore under no obligation to hand over the renegade Avengers, it’s in their best interests to stay under the radar as long as possible and not make waves.

And it’s a pleasant change to walk unnoticed through the city, no heads turning, no people staring and pointing. The Madripoor gossips have no interest in the goings-on of the facility, more focused on the news about the Hoans and more regional celebrities.

Steve feels...ordinary, for the first time in years. Just one more person in the flow of seven billion.

It’s not quite comfortable, but it’s...freeing.

Sitting at the café table Jason got for them, watching the ebb and flow of people through the park, Steve suddenly itches for a sketchpad. Upon inquiry as to where he can get supplies, Jason points over at a shopping centre entrance. “Over there. You want it now?”

“No. Later’s fine.”

“You’re into architecture?”

In New York he had been, but that was a case of capturing the memories of a city long gone, and which he was rapidly beginning to forget. “More people here, I think.”

Steve lets his eye drift through the park, picking subjects. The child wandering by in a blue pea-coat with a balloon, the red flowers on her headband matching the ones on her buckle shoes. The two young businessmen looking at one phone and discussing what they’re viewing in laughing and intimate tones. The man in the wheelchair who’s coaxed his companion into sitting on his lap so he can spin her around in a wheelie—

Steve’s heart stutters as she laughs – a moment of bright delight that he so rarely heard, and never in public.

“Ah,” says Jason, pausing in stirring his coffee. “That’s Nathan Pryor. He used to be a New York financier – Brooklyn, like yourself.”

He’s seen the flowers Maria receives and displays openly on her desk, and Sam told him about the box and the card. _An ex, who’s not looking so ex anymore._

Maria’s arm is around the other man’s shoulders, her face tilted up to the sky, letting him manage the balance of the wheelchair, giving him control in a public park with people looking on, the smiles of humanity on their faces. And Steve thinks of all the times he had to argue her into anything even resembling acquiescence – from having dinner together in one of the common rooms to staying with him until morning.

His mouth is dry. He drains his water glass. “What’s a New York financier doing over here?”

Jason cradles his coffee. “Getting away from his past, I guess. He was in New York when the Chitauri came - it’s how he ended up in the wheelchair. Played chicken with a Chitauri that landed in his office to give his co-workers time to get to the exits. Crashed out through a window twelve stories up, landed on a skimmer, was in a coma for a year.”

“And he just happens to be in Madripoor now?”

The other man grins. “Most of us make do with coincidence, Rogers.”

The wheelchair thumps back upright, and Maria climbs off, smiling, her fingers combing through the short shagginess of her hair, self-conscious in a way that Steve never saw in her while they were together.

Someone who matters to her. An ordinary hero.

He doesn’t realise he’s said that last out loud until Jason laughs. “You, of all people, are surprised that Maria is a hero’s type?”

Does the mask show the heat in his cheeks? Steve doesn’t know. But he watches as Maria and her ex-not-ex wander out of the park, back towards the offices and can’t breathe.

Jason continues after a moment. “Even when I met her, Maria was not a woman for an uncertain or doubtful man. What she set herself to do, she would do. It would take someone with confidence to offer himself to such a woman – and few of us have the strength.”

“Did you ever—? No.” He corrects himself, not wanting to know. “Don’t tell me.”

Thankfully, Jason doesn’t.

The last few weeks are taking their toll – first the Accords, then Peggy. The bombing, then Bucky, then Zemo. Stark and the revelation, and the bitter, brutal fight that tore at them both, inside and out. Walking away from the shield, from the Avengers, and finally, from the sanctuary Bucky chose for himself. Maria and Madripoor.

It’s not that he wants to get back with Maria; it was always complicated, always an effort to co-ordinate with each other, always having to be careful. It’s just...

Too much has changed in too short a time. He’s not sure how much more he can take.

_You have lived in the past too long, chasing your ghosts._

He needs a touchstone – something that’s _his_ . 

A new life with new possibilities now that the old one is closed to him forever. Now that he’s no longer Captain America – at least, not officially.

But, he thinks as he watches the people go by and Jason flags down a waitress for the bill, there are things he needs to do to close out the old life first.

* * *

Pepper is reading something on a tablet when Steve knocks on her door. She looks up, her fingers pausing over the keyboard as she types in whatever corrections she was making. “Take a seat, Steve. Sorry, I have to finish this and send it off in the next fifteen minutes.”

“It’s not a problem.”

He closes the door behind him and sits down, taking in the office as he does.

Neat and stylish – rather like Pepper herself, with small personal touches here and there. A gleaming sculpture of glass that looks at once both incredibly fragile and incredibly strong – fitting. A moving thing of metal that reminds him of a wind generator, although it looks nothing like it. A legal pad and a fountain pen – nothing like Howard’s old twin pair – and two bottles of nailpolish – one clear, one peach.

The peach polish is on her nails, and he finds himself staring at her fingers as she finishes typing up the corrections, and sends it off with a swipe.

“The joys of running Stark Industries from halfway across the world?” Steve ventures.

“Or of dealing with Directors who think your absence is an opportunity to run rampant.” Pepper smiles as she pushes the screen away. “But how can I help you?”

“Two things. One,” he holds up the phone and the letter he bought while out with Jason. “I need to make a delivery to Tony. I don’t want it to be traceable back here, so I was wondering if you could get it sent on from somewhere else?”

Pepper eyes the letter. “A peace offering?”

“Of sorts. I’m not sure he’ll take it, but...”

“You have to make the offer.” Pepper nods. “And the second?”

Steve only hesitates a moment. “It’s about an agent – she used to be S.H.I.E.L.D but she’s working with the CIA. Or was. She helped us get out, got me and Sam the suits before she had to go on the run. I don’t know what happened to her, and I’m wondering if there’s any way to find out.”

“This would be Sharon Carter?”

“Yes.”

“Maria already looked her up and got her out. I believe she’s presently in a safehouse in Egypt.”

Steve breathes a little easier. He’s been worried about Sharon – she put a lot on the line to help him and Sam and Bucky, and after what they did to the Avengers, he doesn’t want to think what the State Department – or another organisation that felt they had the right to judge the Avengers’ actions – put her through. “Good. I’d like her contact details, if you have them.”

“I do.”

It’s the way she says it that makes him ask, “But?”

Pepper looks at him for a long moment, her expression inscrutable. “I’ll give you her contact information, but if you want Ms. Carter to transfer this facility, I’m going to ask you to wait until Maria’s gone.”

 _That’s moving fast, even for me,_ Steve is about to say. Then the end of Pepper’s sentence clutches at him. “Where’s she going?”

“She hasn’t told me yet – I don’t think she has concrete plans until after she’s cleared of the cancer.” A shrug. “Until then, though, I’d like to spare her the stress of watching her ex romance someone else.”

There’s a moment when he can’t speak through the hot lump in his throat. “The way she’s romancing Pryor?”

Pepper frowns. “If I understand correctly, _he’s_ the one romancing _her_.”

“Considering she was happy to sit in his lap in a public park,” Steve says, more harshly than he intended, “I’d say the interest is mutual.”

There’s a long moment, during which Pepper’s gaze narrows, before she sits back in the chair. “Tell me, Steve, what do you think would have happened if you and Maria had ever come out as a couple?”

“There’d have been attention. Gossip.”

“When Tony gave me control of Stark Industries, the most polite thing that was said about me was ‘ _it’s obvious she knows her way around Stark; let’s hope that she can work out how to keep Stark Industries going_.’” Her smile is dulcet, but the look in her eyes is steely fire. “Yes, I’m still bitter. Did you never hear the gossip About Maria and Nick Fury while you were at S.H.I.E.L.D?”

“I heard them.” Steve had shut them down wherever he could, because if anything, Maria had been scrupulously professional with Fury...

“Yes.” Pepper sees the understanding dawning on his face. “And that was in S.H.I.E.L.D, where she’d come up through the ranks, made friends along the way, and so had a certain amount of protection from the worst of it. Now how hard do you think the intelligence fraternity would tear into her if it was known she’d been intimate with Captain America?”

“ _We agreed—“_

_His mouth silenced Maria’s protest, softened her resistance as he pressed her back against the wall. “This isn’t public.”_

_She hadn’t protested again – had kissed him back, as ardently as he wanted. But after that, she’d stepped away, putting space between them, more careful, more reserved, less willing to let him cross the lines she’d drawn between them._

There’s a lump in Steve’s throat, the rising choke of understanding. “She never said.”

But even as he says it, he’s aware he should have noticed, should have known. After all, Peggy had come up against the rumours about her closeness with the Howling Commandos – and particularly Steve. And that had been in the middle of the war, with little time for gossip, and no internet.

“Well,” Pepper says, gently. “Now you know.”

* * *

He’s on his way down when he spots Wanda in the kitchen – actually, he smells the cooking before he looks in – spice and onion and something meaty. There’s a pan on the stove, steam rising from its lip but Wanda’s leaning down on her elbows, her hands clasped together and pressed against the side of her head as she stares down at the open recipe book.

Steve pauses, struck by the tension in her pose. “Wanda? Hey.”

She glances up, startled, before she relaxes a little, smiling. “Steve. You look very nice.”

“Going out.” He hesitates. “What are you doing?”

“I am fine. I was cooking and just...thinking.”

Something about the way she says it suggests she’s not really thinking about what she’s making. Steve steps into the kitchen area – much smaller, more compact, in the way of everything around here. “About?”

Her laugh is hollow as she looks at the pan. “Vision. He made me paprikash before all this began. Or tried to.” The smile she lifts to Steve is a little bitter. “Then he would not let me go out to get the sweet paprika it needed.”

In the silence, Steve feels the weight of his decisions anew. “We did what we thought was right.”

“Yes.” Wanda flicks a finger and the stove turns off. “And it has brought me here to Madripoor, and taken him back to New York. There are reasons and I do not deny them. And yet...” She stares down at her hands, bare of the rings that used to circle them. “I feel like a part of me is missing.”

Steve doesn’t wince, although he knows how that feels.

Does he project that thought? Maybe, because Wanda looks up at him, her eyes dark and sharp and no longer young. “Is that what it was like for you? When she left?”

He always knew that Wanda knew. It’s not exactly easy to hide secrets from a telepath, even if she’s not deliberately reading him. “A little.” He recalls coming back from a meeting or training or a mission scout, more than once, and remembering she was gone only when he wanted to talk to her about something, and feeling the emptiness. 

“You focused on our work but it seemed—” Wanda stutters to a halt, then looks back down at her hands as a tendril of scarlet winds around her fingers. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It’s not easy for him to talk about it, the strictures against publicising his relationship with Maria extending to telling the team in any way. But he doesn’t want to talk about it now. “It gets easier.” 

“I don’t think I want it to get easier. If it gets easier, then doesn’t it mean this...these feelings have gone?”

“No.” Then Steve modifies his answer. “Not necessarily.”

Wanda studies him for a long, uncomfortable moment, then nods and looks away. Her shoulders set, like she’s bracing herself, and a moment later she speaks again, in lighter tones. “But I am interrupting you. Where are you going?”

“I’m not sure. Baran Hoan is taking us and some of the Tigers into the city. Apparently we’re going to learn how to navigate Madripoor’s nightlife.”

“Ah, a guys’ night out.” Her expression turns smugly sage. “Should I warn you to take appropriate precautions? Alan has told me how Madripoor nights can go.”

Steve shakes his head, although his cheeks feel warm. He has a pretty good idea of where they’re being taken tonight, too. “You won’t say anything Natasha hasn’t already said.”

The smile turns to a light laugh. “Then I shall not.” Her fingers twist and the stove lights up again with a soft _fwoom_ and the briefest whiff of gas. The flare of light illuminates her face, like a witch over a cauldron. “Enjoy your night, Steve.” 

“You, too.”

As he presses the elevator button to head down to the parking garage, Steve reflects on whether he should have said something more, pushed Wanda a little harder about Vision.

Bucky was the closest thing he had to a brother growing up. But in the months since Wanda joined the team, Steve feels he’s fallen into the role of older brother – not Pietro, never a replacement for the other half she’s lost – but someone safe and trustworthy, and whom she can tease and confide in.

He makes a note to check up on Alan – one of the younger Tigers, who seemed quiet but friendly enough towards Wanda – and not afraid of what she could do to him. He’ll take a closer look after tonight.

The elevator doors open and Steve steps in – then spins out of the way as he nearly collides with Maria emerging from the car. He manages to sidestep her, although not without bringing his hands up to her shoulder and waist so he can pivot around her. One of her hands latches onto his arm while the other presses against his chest for balance, like they’re in a strange and complicated dance.

“Rogers,” she says, her voice wavering before she lifts her chin. “Thanks for the save.”

“Are you okay?”

The question is automatic, forced past the lump in his throat. But something in him wants more than just the polite answer. She’s thinner, with less of the toned muscle and sleek skin than he remembers, although the strength he associates with her has nothing to do with body.

“Yes,” Maria’s lashes lift but a shutter has come down, and her gaze is remote, distant. “Fine.” 

In the face of that distance, Steve has the sudden urge to run his hand down her arm, slide his arm around her waist, cup her face in his palm and brush his thumb across her lashes, the way he sometimes would when he woke in the morning and found her still sleeping beside him – an intimacy he indulged in when she couldn’t protest. He’s just letting go of her shoulder to lift his hand to her face when the beep of a message arriving on his phone reminds him that he has somewhere to be. The guys are waiting for him – that was probably Sam checking that he’s actually made it out of his room and threatening to come and fetch him.

And Maria’s looking at him like she’s waiting for him to say something, do something – something that doesn’t relate to pushing back into her personal space after she made it clear they were done.

Steve drops his hands. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem.” She steps out, casual and comfortable in loose track pants and a hoodie sweater, then turns as though remembering something. “Is Wanda up here?”

“Yes. She’s... Would you check in on her? I think...I think she’s missing Vision.”

Understanding lifts her expression and she nods, accepting the charge. “I can do that. Enjoy your night out.”

“I will.”

The doors close on the sight of her heading down the corridor to the kitchen, and Steve shoves his hands in his pockets to deny the urge to push the doors open and go after her.

_If it gets easier, then doesn’t it mean this...these feelings have gone?_

_Not necessarily._

* * *

In a city of money and trade, everything is available for the right price.

Although there’s no price-tag for his guests tonight according to Baran Hoan, scion of the Hoan clan, slick as a Wall Street banker and smiling as a shark.

Steve distrusts this immediately and is glad to see both Sam and Clint regard the offer with the same suspicion, although Sam seems more willing to be charmed by the hostess who takes his arm and leads him to the dinner table at the exclusive and private restaurant where they’re dining.

Behind him, Barton mutters something to Jason, whose response is that there’s dinner and drinks and anything after that is up to them as individuals.

“Baran likes to play generous royalty.”

“Does he also like to play capricious and cruel royalty?” Barton inquires.

“He probably would, if not for the fact that his sister holds the reins.” Seeing Steve tuning in to the conversation, Jason smiles. “And if you doubt Jessan Hoan’s will, then consider that Maria acknowledges her as a friend.”

Steve and Clint look at each other. Clint shrugs and takes the arm of the dainty little hostess who’s been assigned to him. Steve regards the two women who are waiting for him and Jason to step forward, considering the situation.

“You have doubts?”

“I always have doubts,” Steve says. “But I can wait to draw conclusions.”

Dinner is delicious and although the alcohol flows generously, the conversation is careful and polite. So far as Steve can tell, Baran Hoan isn’t pumping them for information, just buttering them up. Which, as an interrogation technique, isn’t a bad one. It just isn’t going to work so easily on two military-trained men, one former spy, and a petty crim – assuming that this is Hoan’s plan. Steve doesn’t know; he’s only inferring, based off his distrust of the Hoans and what they’re getting out of having the renegade Avengers here when everywhere else has cast them out.

He drinks freely, safe in the knowledge that his metabolism can take it, but is relieved to note that Clint nurses a single drink through the dinner, and Sam stretches his two beers out. Lang is less guarded, particularly as the dinner goes on. Steve doesn’t begrudge him that – the man’s new to this dance, and he can’t reveal too much about the Avengers in operation, while even Sam has a couple of years of experience under his belt.

When they move to the ‘gentleman’s club’, the seduction – as in, Baran Hoan’s friendliness – becomes rather more obvious. It’s nothing as blatant as topless waitresses, but the women who bring them drinks are quite plainly on offer, from the suggestive cut of their gowns, to the way they kneel as gracefully as a controlled landing in a Quinjet.

Steve doesn’t squirm at the implications – he’s seen rather worse under harder circumstances – but he can’t quite disguise his discomfort the way Clint can and he can’t just accept it the way Sam and Lang seem to be doing.

He sips the whiskey Hoan insisted he and the others try, and observes the other guests in the club – mostly groups of men, although there is a group of women over in one corner – mostly older women, chatting easily among themselves and giving no shits, as Maria would probably say. And the servers looking after that table aren’t bait, although Steve would be hard-pressed to say exactly what it is that changes the tone of the service.

Hoan and Sam have started up a conversation about the regional political situation, and Lang is asking Jason questions about baseball in Japan – apparently Jason is a fan. Clint is watching everything and everyone – including Steve. He tilts his glass in brief acknowledgement before his eyes slide elsewhere, surveying the room with Hawkeye’s sharp-eyed gaze.

Steve finishes his drink and heads for the restrooms. On his way back, he spots a balcony that overlooks the city, and diverts to get some fresh air.

The air isn’t entirely fresh thanks to the smokers, but the view is magnificent tonight – the speckled lights of the city and the outer districts along the curve of the port, a full moon glittering across the choppy waters, and the dark sweep of the South China Sea as it ebbs and flows out to the Pacific.

“Captain.” He turns to find Jessan Hoan standing a few feet away with two drinks, one of which she’s offering to him. “May I join you?”

“Please.”

She settles her furs more firmly around her shoulders and joins him at the railing, passing him the drink – a gin and tonic – and tapping her glass against his. “You don’t trust us.”

“You’re very generous.”

“Yet Baran’s hospitality is not to your tastes?”

Steve thinks about courtesy, politeness, and not answering the question. “Do the girls in there have a choice about their work?”

Jessan smiles. “Yes, they do. Prostitution is legal employment here in Madripoor, Captain. The women who choose this are neither helpless, nor forced into service. They have rights and a recourse to action should a customer breach the lines – and are trained in methods of deterrence, should customers feel they are entitled to more than they are permitted.”

“It can’t work perfectly.”

“But what ever does?” The furs slip from her shoulder to hang from the crook of her arm as she shrugs and turns so her back is to the city and the sea. “Sex sells, Captain. It always has. And yes, Companionship pays better than, say, washing dishes in the kitchens. Is there prejudice and bigotry still? Of course. And always the element of personal risk. But formal rules give the women more security in their work, and bring balance back into the picture: regulations, requirements, legal recourse when things go wrong.”

“It’s very...bloodless.”

“Perhaps. But less messy than the alternative.” Jessan makes a gesture, and Steve turns to see a woman approaching them.

Brown hair – chestnut, he thinks, although the light of the moon makes it several shades darker – and a dress of something that clings to her curves in a muted, subtle colour before flaring out in draped folds to just below the knee. Scarlet lipstick and dark eyes framed with long lashes that flick up to look him directly in the eye as she passes him one of the two drinks she’s carrying.

He didn’t even notice she was carrying the drinks.

When he looks at Jessan, she’s watching him with bright and amused eyes, not even looking at the woman as she holds out her hand for the wine glass. The servitor steps to the side – holding the tray against her, her hands clasped in front. She smiles at Steve, polite and a little steely.

“Not your type anymore? Well, perhaps Ashley is more to your style?”

Steve follows her gaze and tenses. Blonde hair falls straight to her shoulders, and the body showcased in the full-length evening gown is slim and elegant. This woman looks at him with a smile, the expression dulcet – almost flirtatious.

“No?” Jessan tilts her head and both women walk back inside without a word spoken.

He’s not sure if he’s impressed or furious, but he can’t help but clip his words. “You seem to know a lot about my taste in women, Ms. Hoan.”

“Knowledge is power, Captain. And vulnerabilities are precious knowledge indeed – especially for a man who has so few.”

The backhanded compliment is still a backhand. And Steve feels a sudden tightness in his throat, remembering Rumlow’s taunt about Bucky, Zemo’s assurance that Steve would defend his old friend against Tony.

_How hard do you think the intelligence fraternity would tear into her if it was known she’d been intimate with Captain America?_

He stares Jessan down. “What’s your game? The Facility. Giving us sanctuary. Providing us a base of operations. What do you get out of this?”

“What do you think we get out of this, Captain?”

Where does the answer come from? He doesn’t know. It’s a sudden flash of enlightenment searing through his brain, the perfect collision of fragmentary evidence forming a cohesive and terrifying whole in his mind.

What the Hoans get out of having the Avengers in Madripoor is access to Maria Hill.

Maria Hill who was the Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, who ran Avengers missions for a year after S.H.I.E.L.D fell, who knows the workings of Stark Industries in and out and is close friends with Pepper Potts. A woman who could infiltrate HYDRA forces with cool control and sneak Captain America and the Black Widow out from under their noses, who worked out how to run a jailbreak on the most high-security prison in the world, and who saw where the Accords were headed and made contingency plans.

_I lost my one good eye,_ Nick Fury said of Phil Coulson just before New York went down. 

And yet a year later, Fury was using that other eye – both the one behind the patch and the one walking at his heels – to take down HYDRA. 

If Bucky Barnes is a weapon lying around for anyone to pick up, Maria Hill is the weapon nobody will see coming – because the world doesn’t know she exists. 

He doesn’t answer Jessan, yet she smiles as though he’s spoken out loud. “And you wonder why I seek your vulnerabilities, Captain?” 

And, in a heart-stopping moment of understanding, Steve Rogers realises that, finished or not, one of his biggest vulnerabilities is still Maria Hill. 

* * *

Who is Steve Rogers in the new world he’s made with his choices?

Still a good man. Still a soldier. Still a leader of his people. 

The realisation that Maria Hill is still one of his people is unexpected, and not entirely welcome. 


	5. terms of use

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for any errors. I'm just trying to get this story out of my head so I can go back to other stuff. Two more chapters after this should do it, assuming there are no plot twists that suddenly turn up.

Curled up on the ottoman end of the couch, tucked in among pillows and throws, Maria is only half-listening to the discussion between Pepper and Natasha about whether Madripoor would have its own Shatterdome or if it would have to rely on the one in Manila. Wanda is watching them with an expression of mixed confusion and dismay on her face, doubtless wondering why it’s a question at all since it’s just a story.

“Are we boring you, Commander?” Wanda arches a brow at her, her expression faintly malicious, and Pepper and Natasha turn.

Pepper smiles. “No titles here, I think, Wanda.”

The setdown is gentle, Pepper’s tone indulgent and amused. And Wanda’s eyes skate to Natasha, who gives the slightest shake of her head.

“You’re not boring me,” Maria steps into the conversation. “But I don’t have anything to add to the conversation.”

“You could tell us about the trip to Seoul on Monday,” Natasha said. “About which you’ve said nothing.”

“You already asked Helen for the results.”

Doubtless, Natasha had requested them about two minutes after Clint radioed that they were on the way back, ETA: one hour.

“Of course. But it would be a nice change to be told something by you instead of having to glean it from other people.”

“Note the irony of that statement coming from the Black Widow.”

Wanda’s smile is sweet. “I thought we were not using titles.”

Pepper draws in a deep breath and sighs, gustily. “If we’re going to fight, I need a refill, because I know I’m going to end up refereeing.” She uncurls herself from the armchair and reaches for the bottle of chardonnay in the ice bucket. “Although it would be nice to hear these things from you every now and then, Maria. I know,” she adds, “you couldn’t afford to be forthcoming when you worked for S.H.I.E.L.D – too many people who wanted to tear you down. But the Avengers aren’t S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“This isn’t the Avengers either,” Maria points out. “But the principle is the same. Intelligence work requires a certain distance to make judgement calls that can shut down a bad situation.”

“And distance would be counted as sneaking out of Steve’s bed and not telling him you were leaving?”

Ah. And it seems that the gloves are off.

She’d suspected Wanda was angry with her before, when she’d gone to draw her out earlier – at Steve’s request, no less. The young woman’s responses had been brisk and polite. It had stung – she’d thought Wanda had liked her when they worked together. Maria hadn’t been _nice_ , but she hadn’t tiptoed around the young telepath either, and the initial round of conversations about joining the Avengers had begun what Maria had thought of as a tentative friendship.

That had ended, of course, when Maria had left.

“My relationship with Steve is none of your business.”

Natasha uncurls her legs and points her toes. “I think the rest of the Avengers would dispute that, considering we had to deal with him after you left.”

“There was no difference.” Maria says it with certainty, because Steve’s more professional than that. “He did the job, didn’t he?”

“He _became_ the job. He threw himself into his work – except when Sharon Carter called. _Then_ he relaxed.” Wanda looks mutinous. “ _She_ was good for him.”

The accusation and the taunt stings. Maria doesn’t need to be told of all the reasons why she and Captain America were a bad idea. She’s known them from the day dot. And Sharon _was_ picked specifically as a personality type likely to appeal to Steve Rogers. So Maria reminds herself that Wanda is young, that what she sees or senses is not everything, and that it’s nothing Maria hasn’t thought before.

It doesn’t keep her from wanting to slap the young woman, inadvisable though it might be.

Natasha blinks, perhaps startled by the degree of Wanda’s antagonism. Pepper’s lips have pressed together in a disapproving line, although she’s holding her silence. Even Wanda seems startled by her own temerity in putting her thoughts so plainly before Maria.

“It’s a pity,” Maria says, cool and quiet as she holds Wanda’s gaze, “that he couldn’t get that through his skull back at the start.”

A pity that she hadn’t gotten it through her hormones from the beginning. A pity she hadn’t resisted the yearning to be someone else – someone attractive, someone that Capain America could find _interesting_.

But that’s done and gone, too late for anything and everything.

She thinks of the little dance-like spin they’d done in the elevator, he coming in, she going out. Her senses are still attuned to him – the feel of him under her hands, the way he looked at her for a moment, like he was going to kiss her.

 _Habit,_ she tells herself. _Habit and instinct._

She put him away for a reason – not least of which was that he comes with a price tag and she can’t afford him.

“I think,” Pepper says, quite deliberately breaking the silence, “that we should avoid the discussion of any and all former relationships tonight.”

“Considering what Stark tried to do,” Wanda says, “Yes.”

Clearly the young woman is far from the ‘fine’ she tendered to Maria earlier. Then again, neither she nor Maria actually believed it, they just let it pass without comment.

However, Maria knows that Pepper isn’t about to just let this pass without _some_ reaction.

Pepper gives Wanda a look. It’s a look with forty years of life behind it, fifteen of them spent working for and with Tony Stark. If there’s anyone who knows Tony better it might be Vision, thanks to the part of him which is JARVIS, but even that wouldn’t carry all the nuances of Pepper’s relationship with Tony. There are layers to their relationship that make Steve’s relationship with Bucky look about as deep as a bathtub compared to the ocean, and there are things between Pepper and Tony that Maria would not touch even if she was paid in favours from Asgard.

Wanda seems to realise she’s crossed a line and scowls down at her fingers.

“Tony makes his own choices.” Pepper’s voice is clipped, almost viciously incisive. “Unfortunately, with the money and influence he possesses, his actions have far-reaching consequences for more than him and his immediate circle. And when he’s standing at the edge and someone pushes him...”

Her fingers are curled around the bowl of the wine glass, and the chardonnay in the glass has started to steam. As Maria focuses on it, it begins to boil at the edges, steaming like a kettle.

“Pepper.”

“It’s under control, Maria.” But Pepper’s voice is tight, and it’s a few tense moments before the wine stops boiling, and she sets the glass on the coffee table.

“Well,” says Natasha, lightly. “That conversation turned out more fraught than expected. And all from an inquiry about how the trip went on Monday.”

“It went fine.” Maria recognises that she’s not going to get out of answering. She’ll sacrifice some privacy in exchange for peace. “The tumour markers are lowering, and the white blood cell count is up, both of which are good. Helen put me in the cradle and did a scan, and the prognosis is good. And then after this cycle of pills is done, I’m back in the cradle once every month to monitor my progress until they’re confident the cancer is gone.”

“And you were going to do this alone.” Pepper picks out another wineglass and pours some more chardonnay for herself.

Maria contemplates possible answers. _It seemed like a good idea at the time,_ seems a little too flippant, and _You had other things to do – things that meant the world kept turning,_ isn’t exactly valid considering the way the landscape of the world of super-powered individuals looks right now.

She settles for, “I was.” And then, because it’s the truth, she adds, “I’m glad I don’t have to.”

“So how difficult was that to get out?”

Maria snorts. “Fuck you, Romanoff.”

Natasha smirks back. “Maybe once you get a decent haircut.”

“We can’t all be as pretty as the Black Widow,” Maria shoots back, even as a chime sounded and the intercom announces the arrival of, ‘Steve Rogers and Clint Barton.’

They walk in – well, Barton saunters, actually – good looking men looking even better in their suits.

“You’re back early. The Hoan hospitality wasn’t up to scratch?” Clearly Natasha is in a snarky mood tonight. “And where’s Sam and Scott?”

“They’re young, they wanted to party on,” Clint flings himself down on the couch between Maria and Wanda. “And the hospitality was well up to scratch – I’ll give you that Hoan knows how to make a good night out.”

Maria pokes him with her toe. “Not the kind of scratch you were looking for?”

He turns his head and smirks. “Needed more brunettes from the midwest,” is his cheeky response.

“Or just a specific one?”

Natasha tilts her head to look over at Steve, who’s been looking in Maria’s direction. “And your excuse?”

Steve hesitates before taking a seat on Wanda’s end of the ottoman. “Clint needed someone to hold his hand on the ride back.”

“And we discover the kind of scratch Clint was looking for.” Pepper murmurs archly, making Wanda giggle.

“So,” Clint says, scrubbing a hand through his hair, “What have you girls been doing?”

They look at each other, the silence just a little too long before Pepper answers, “We’ve had a...fairly quiet night. Movies, food, wine,” she indicates the bottles on the table. “And yes, we let Wanda drink.”

“You let—?”

“Legal age for drinking in Madripoor is eighteen,” Natasha reminds Clint.

“And you are not my father,” Wanda says.

“Thank God for that,” Clint mutters drolly. “I am never letting you lot near Lila, though.”

 _Oh, you asked for this,_ Maria thinks as Pepper, Natasha, and Wanda turn and look at him.

Wanda lifts one eyebrow. “Because a group of capable, intelligent women should never be allowed to set an example for a young girl?”

“Jesus Christ.” Clint looks to Steve. “Help me out here?”

“Actually, I’m on their side.”

“Traitor.”

Of course Wanda, Pepper, and Natasha protest this, immediate and pointed. And Barton taunts them, mostly playing devil’s advocate, and appealing to Steve whenever he can – not that Steve gives him much backing.

Maria lets herself rest back against the cushions.

It’s a pleasant feeling to just sit in the company of others, listening to their conversation, free to enter the discussion and free, also, to sit in silence without offering anything, and to be allowed to sit in silence without _having_ to offer anything.

When Avengers HQ moved out of Stark Tower to the facility, the dynamics of Maria’s support to the Avengers changed. Too many of the people working at the facility were ex-S.H.I.E.L.D, and had known Maria before the Triskelion fell. Their expectations and prejudice coloured her work, requiring her to be more distant than she’d been when they worked out of Stark Tower.

Somewhere along the way, she forgot how it felt to be included without judgement.

It was always rare in her life to be accepted as she was. She was the daughter who survived when her mother did not, the Marine who struggled to follow the letter of the rules if the spirit was violated, the agent whose competence was appreciated by competent others but was dismissed as favouritism by everyone else.

Then S.H.I.E.L.D fell and Stark Industries took her on, even as she took on the Avengers. And, outside of the organisation that had given her the confidence to be who she was meant to be, she’d been _valued_ – by people who had no reason to value her –  there were no shortage of people who wanted to work for the Avengers, at least one of them would have been her equal in logistics management. And yet...Pepper had befriended her, the Avengers had each thanked her for organising them at some stage or another, and Steve Rogers had seduced her.

She watches him nudge Wanda with a friendly elbow and wonders if it was his slow and rueful smile or the  swift and blinding grin? Was it the kindness that dragged her out of the Triskelion when he found she’d been working too long, or the loyalty to his principles and his people and his lost friend?  Maybe it was the way his hand touched her shoulder in a foxhole when he thought she was sobbing – before he realised she was shaking with laughter, or the way he started moving through her personal space without thought – scent and heat and a presence she couldn’t ignore.

Maybe she was just a sucker for a problem she couldn’t fix – the sense of loss that hung about him, as  palpable as the thundercloud Tony always quipped was above his head. But she’d let herself bask in the heat of his gaze across the Quinjet hold as she organised the clean-up logistics after a small political crisis involving the Winter Soldier and an Italian biochemist, and when he’d invited her to bed two nights later, frank and blunt and unapologetic about the fact he wanted her, she’d accepted.

Maria watches him now, joking with Natasha and Wanda, answering Clint with a smile, and turning to appeal to Pepper as referee while she laughs and holds up her hands, one of them still full of wine glass.

Once, his gaze crosses hers and his expression stills before he looks away.

It’s nothing less than she expects.

When Maria received the cancer diagnosis, she’d tried to rip out everything that made her vulnerable and learned that it only left her alone. She’d learned that she could take people out of her equations, but some would only put themselves right back in.

Fury had been, well, furious. _I don’t even want to know why you thought this was a good idea._

 _Nobody understands the desire to run away more than me,_ Pepper had said, her response understanding and yet somehow more stinging than Fury’s, _But not like this, Maria. Not when you’re fighting your own body, too._

_So we were the collateral damage in your shutout policy?_

Yes. And no. Ultimately _she’d_ been the collateral damage in her shut-out policy.

And now she’s back to building bridges again, some of which are nearly rebuilt, and some – she watches Steve grin sideways at Wanda – which will never be complete again.

Maria doesn’t dwell on the memory of him looking down at her in the elevator, close and warm and comforting. She can’t.

–

The knock on her door is unnecessary, Maria guessed who it was from the tread down the corridor.

She glances up from the files she’s reading – an analysis of the Accords and the various factions that have formed behind them, particularly in the wake of Berlin – and finds him filling the doorway, looking hesitant. “Rogers.”

“Given everything else, do we have to be formal?”

“Given everything else, I think it’s safer.”

He indicates the chair. “May I?”

She sat back as he took it, noting the way he dropped into the seat, coiled power, coiled strength, coiled passion. He’d always had the last, Peggy had said, even before the serum. But Erskine’s experiment had given that fervour outlet, created something beyond anything the scientist had imagined or envisioned – a soldier who wouldn’t take orders blindly, with the physical strength to make his own way, the capacity for command, and the ability to inspire loyalty.

“You wanted to discuss the procedure for running missions out of this facility,” he says without preamble. “Sam says he’s taken on some of the analysis work for you, and has roped Lang into looking at things from a less-legal perspective, but that can’t be all. S.H.I.E.L.D ran with whole divisions dedicated to Statistics and Analysis, not to mention R&D, and so did the Facility – where are these people now?”

“Different places. Some are working with S.H.I.E.L.D – the new S.H.I.E.L.D, some of them are still at the Avengers facility, but many scattered throughout the world.”

“So you have no concentrated support.”

“This isn’t the Avengers: Asia Base, Steve. We’re working with what we have – and this is what we have.” She thinks of something from the movie the other night. “You have to stop thinking of yourself as the frontline. Now you’re the resistance.”

He considered her for a moment. “So who picks the missions?”

“You do, in consultation with Pepper and the rest of your team, and a couple of analysts that I’ll introduce to you.”

“Avoiding contact with me?”

And that’s personal. Maria frowns. “With a comment like that, is it a surprise?”

He blinks, as though he wasn’t expecting her riposte. _So you can dish it, Rogers, but you can’t take it?_ Maria continues, investing all her cool into her voice. “I’m still in recovery, Rogers, and will be for several months yet. The doctors have reluctantly allowed that I can work, but I’m supposed to be on light duty.”

One hand indicates the office with the computer and the tablet and the files and the screens. “And yet.”

“And yet,” she agrees. “But this time you’ll get to make your own choices about missions – with some restrictions – and choose your own backup. The Tigers may not be the Howling Commandos, but they’re not STRIKE either.”

“Did you choose Jason because he was Jim Morita’s grandnephew?”

“No more than Fury chose Sharon because she was Peggy’s niece.” Maria watches the faint flush of colour in his cheeks and adds, “Sometimes things just happen.”

She’s pretty sure she manages to sound calm about it. After all, she’d ended things between them, and while Steve isn’t a man to need sex to define his masculinity the way some men seemed to, he _is_ the kind of man that women will be drawn to, will make themselves available for, will actively pursue.

Maria’s used to sounding calm about the interest other women take in Steve. She doesn’t blame him. And she doesn’t blame the other women for being attracted either.

It doesn’t mean she ever _liked_ it.

“Like Nathan Pryor just happened to be in Madripoor?”

“Yes.”

Maria has nothing of which to be ashamed about Nate. She thought he was dead or she’d never have climbed into bed with Steve. And by the time she got to Madripoor, it had been more than two months of radio silence after her last message that they were over.

But that’s the past. It may cling to them for a while yet, but they’re going to have to deal with it if they’re working with each other – and working with each other isn’t exactly going to be avoidable in this situation.

Maria sighs. “Did you want to Monday-morning quarterback about our relationship, Steve, or did you want to discuss the logistics of this operation?”

“I thought we were discussing operations logistics,” he says, straight-faced. “You were the one who brought up personal connections.”

“ _Touché_.” And the more fool her for diverting into a topic that was only ever going to ache. “So, Jason and the Tigers as field support. Did you have any immediate preferences for operations support?”

“Ms. Amador was excellent backup while getting into the Raft.” Steve says after a moment. “She was ready for all the eventualities and competent in executing them. And Specialist Klein has been very helpful in explaining how things go around here. Those are the two I can think of, off-hand. Did you have any specific recommendations?”

She pulls the keyboard over and starts pulling profiles up into the desk interface, before sending the links over to Steve one by one. “They’ll load up on your tablet the next time you log in to Operations Central. I’ve mostly sent you Communications since you’ve got the Tigers, but I’ve added a couple of analysts who might have something to offer the Avengers in experience and insight. Use them as necessary, but keep in mind that most of them have day jobs now and won’t be available to you full-time.”

“Uhuh.” Steve lifts a hand and, after a glance at Maria to check that it’s okay,  re-orients the interface so he can see the faces and resumes of the various personnel she’s picked out.

Maria supposes she should have known she wouldn’t get rid of Steve Rogers quite so easily.

The buzz of her phone is almost a relief, except that she has caller ID.

She picks up the handset rather than transfer the call to the desk system. “This is Hill.”

“I may need a follow-up in China. An agent was supposed to check in two days ago, hasn’t.”

“I’m fine, sir.” The non-sequitur is a code supposed to notify him that she’s not alone – that there’s someone else in the room and she can’t talk in the open, but the instant the rank slips from her lips, Maria knows she’s made a mistake. Steve looks up from the files, his gaze sharp and blue as he realises who’s on the other end of the line. She doesn’t wince – at least, she doesn’t think she does – but his gaze narrows as she adds another code, “We’ve got a plan in place for that.”

Fury huffs. “And yet you took the call?”

Maria stares off at the wall, unwilling to meet Steve’s narrow-eyed gaze. “By any chance, did you call to make my life easier?”

“Sounds like you’ve already made it more difficult without any help from me. Incidentally, I did call to see how you were, however the missing operative is a convenient cover – and a potential problem if the silence continues. How did things go at Seoul on Monday?”

“Would you like me to put out a bulletin?”

“I don’t care if anyone _else_ knows.” Fury says. “But I’m gonna ask. I’m caring that way.”

It was very matter-of-fact, but Maria remembers the way he walked in the door of her room in the place she’d booked for treatment, took one look at her gaunt face and shaven head, tensed like he’d just been brought one of the reports that basically read ‘nobody walked out alive’, and exited the room. A minute later, he was back with the matron of the ward, and asking the incisive, edged questions of a man accustomed to winkling pertinent details out of a vague report, but Maria had seen the bleakness in his expression in that moment before he turned away.

“And the plan?”

“Hill, he probably wouldn’t mind getting the update as well. Or you can get rid of him however you think will work. I’ll wait. Just let me get my popcorn ready.”

The tone is now distinctly malicious. Maria looks up at Steve and finds him still watching her. She’s reasonably sure that he can’t hear Fury’s side of the conversation, but still, it’s about as awkward as last night, with Natasha wanting to know and feeling as though everyone else in the room had the right to know, too.

Then again, she supposes, there was a reason Fury held a fondness for Romanoff.

“The tumor markers are all the way down, the white blood cell count is nearly normal. When I finish the current round of medication, Helen wants to run a full cradle scan. And then it’s just monthly check-ups for the next couple of years. You could have gotten this from the report.”

“I could have. And you could have told me what was happening the first time. But we’re not going there.”

“After _you_ brought it up.” After having had that used against her once today, it’s nice to be able to wield it against someone else.

“Even I occasionally make mistakes. All right, I suppose that will do for the Cliff Notes, I’ll do the homework readings myself.”

“Keep me updated on the operative.” Maria starts to reach for her interface then sits back and makes a ‘don’t worry’ gesture at Steve when he starts to turn the display around. “I can set resources to yellow a week in advance.”

“Well, consider this your week in advance. Last I heard there were big things stirring – and Rogers and his cohort haven’t made things much better. And _you_ keep me updated on your treatment.”

Maria knows better than to say anything other than, “Yes, sir.”

“So,” Steve says once she’s terminated the call. “You told _him_.”

“I didn’t tell him. He tracked me down.”

“And took strips out of your hide, I bet.”

“ _Took_ strips out? Past tense? He still is.” Maria shrugs and sits up. She’s not going to discuss her relationship with Fury with Steve anymore than she discussed her relationship with Steve with Fury. She indicates the personnel lists displayed between them. “So, did you decide who you want in ?”

He points out names and faces, and after some discussion about who and why, Maria tags them as requested resources in the database. Somewhat curiously, although Sharon’s file pops up on the screens, he doesn’t point her out and Maria doesn’t offer. Her much-vaunted cool only goes so far, and helping her ex on to a new woman is definitely not in the coverage. Then again, Maria knows exactly how awkward it is for the operations logistics controller to juggle fucking the field operations leader while still getting the job done, so maybe it’s not such a surprise.

Through all this, Steve watches her with an expression she can’t decipher. Or, if anything, it reminds her of the earliest days of their acquaintance, when she didn’t like the idea of the Avengers much, and he didn’t know what to do with someone who was going to make him work for her good opinion.

They nut out a plan of action – who’s responsible for what and where and when. Maria makes a note to have a word with Akela about working with Steve and his tendency to take gentle control of the situation. Mostly, he doesn’t realise what he’s doing, but he can be a damned sneaky bastard about it, too.

Akela, at least, won’t have to fight him on the personal front. Rogers is not her type – which is to say, he’s male.

“So,” he says when they’ve sorted out the nitty gritty of how the operation parts of this outfit are going to work. “You’re still cleaning up after Fury.”

She snorts. “You know, a girl really can’t win around here. You say I’m still cleaning up after him. He says I’m still cleaning up after you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be cleaning up after any of us.”

“Tried that for a while. It didn’t take.” And Maria nearly went raving mad. “Believe it or not, this _is_ the happy medium for everyone.”

“Setting up an agent extraction is a happy medium?”

“Well, maybe more of a happy large.” It’s not nice to tease him, but it _is_ fun, and always was.

His lips thin, a disapproval he never disguised from her, although he _did_ rein it in from time to time. “You still need a goddamned keeper, Maria!”

They both still, colour stinging their faces.

The first time he’d said that her, she’d responded glibly. _Are you offering to fill the position?_

_Yes._

_Steve Rogers, Captain America, and self-appointed mother hen,_ she’d mocked, because his expression had made her want to shut the conversation down and run. Sheer bloody-mindedness and the refusal to back down had made her stand her ground.

_Seriously, do you let anyone look after you?_

_I try not to. It makes things less complicated._

_Life **is** complicated, Maria._ And he’d brushed one hand past her cheek in a caress that seemed to surprise him as much as her. After that, one thing had led to another, ending up in his bed an hour later.

“Unfortunately,” Maria says after an awkward moment, “that position is no longer available.”

After a moment, the colour fades from Steve’s face. “I see.” He opens his mouth, closes it again, and stands. “Thank you for the time, Maria.”

He goes  and she lets him.

Natasha accused her of being scared by Steve Rogers. And the truth is, she was.

She still is.

–

Pepper knocks on her suite door some thirty minutes before she’s due down at the hangar.

Maria ushers her in and closes the door behind. There are seats by the window, looking out on a small sliver of terraced garden that runs down the north side of the facility, and she offers Pepper a soda which the other woman refuses as she sits down. This is apparently not a social visit.

She steels herself for some bad news – it hasn’t been a good morning physically so far, and she’s dreading whatever else the universe has to throw at her next. But she’ll face it, because someone has to, and it seems the someone is her.

“I just got a call from Tony.”

Maria winces. “How’s he doing?”

“Okay. Rhodey’s healing well. Tony went on about a variation on the suit he’s developing to help Rhodey walk again. I think he’s a bit lonely.” Pepper’s smile is wry. “I think they all are – he, Rhodey, and Vision. Or maybe I’m just reading between the lines.”

“I’ll take your assessment over any psych any day,” Maria tells her. “What’s happening with the Avengers Initiative?”

“More or less what we expected. They’re recruiting new members – ones apart from T’Challa and young Peter. Rhodey has contacts in the military and they’ve been talking about an Army Captain whose higher-ups have been protecting her from scrutiny because she’s really good at what she does, but it’s starting to look like she might be an enhanced.”

Maria’s eyes narrow. “Carol Danvers?”

“That’s her.” Pepper looks rueful. “There’s also rumours of Pym working on a second shrinking suit, and I think Tony is considering applying to whoever ends up the wearer – although I don’t know how that’s going to work given how much Pym hates him and Howard.”

“I wonder how Lang’s going to feel about the competition,” Maria muses. “They’d need an operator for the second suit – someone young enough and flexible-minded enough to keep up with the demands. I’d keep an eye on the people working for Pym. He’s paranoid enough that he’ll want to keep it in the family, so to speak.”

“He talked generally about a few others – no names, very little specifics. Then he asked if I was going to be back in town anytime soon, because there’s a really nice new restaurant he thought we could try.” Pepper makes a face.

Maria doesn’t wince, but she feels a shaft of sympathy for Pepper – and of envy. Because whatever Stark’s personal faults, Pepper really does love him. It’s just...not enough. Not the way things had been tending, not with Extremis in the mix, and not with Tony’s frantic and desperate need to keep Pepper ‘ _safe_ ’.

There’s love and there’s smothering, and Pepper was right to get out.

But there’s still love, at least.

“He fished for where I am and what I’m doing,” Pepper continues, “But I’m pretty sure he came up empty-handed.”

“That’s going to become more difficult with time,” Maria notes. “Even with sovereign boundaries, sooner or later Madripoor’s going to be a target. When I get back, I’ll have a word with Jessan; the three of us can surely put something together on how to manage the situation when it breaks that the Avengers have been hiding out here.”

“I think they’ll also need a briefing on what’s to happen if we have another invasion like the Chitauri or a situation like Sokovia. Because I can’t see Steve sitting back and doing nothing when the world is at stake, and if Tony is putting together a first-response team, then the two teams are going to clash – they’re not exactly the kind of people who disguise easily...”

“At that point, I’d have Akela co-ordinate with whomever is doing Logistics for the Initiative, and we’d work something out. I gave her tips on how to handle Steve; and she’ll work out her own way to smack him down when he needs it.”

Pepper smiles, ruefully, before the smile fades a little. “How are you doing, Maria? With Steve, I mean?”

“He hasn’t taken me and shaken me by the scruff of the neck yet, and I haven’t beaten him to death with a wifflebat.” Maria shrugs. “We’re adults. We’re polite.” The noise Pepper made isn’t quite agreement. “What?”

“I don’t think polite is the word I’d use to describe how he looks at you when you’re not paying attention.”

Maria grimaces. “Please don’t.”

The smile twinkles with a mischief few people get to see in one of the most powerful women in the world. “All right. I won’t.” And, unlike other people who say they won’t, Pepper doesn’t. Instead, she stands up. “So I’ll start drawing together a crisis response plan, and you’ll get down to the hangar before Clint beeps you to tell you to hurry up. Say ‘hi’ to Helen for me, and come see me with her report when you get back.”

Maria keeps in her sigh until the door has closed behind her friend, then wonders if she should just tell Helen to make a video and send it to the various Avengers via email. That’s about as much privacy as she seems to get from everyone these days.

Clint is just finishing the pre-flight check as she comes down, her duffle at the ready.

“All ready for the poking and the prodding and the medical assessment?”

“All ready for retail hell?”

They’ll be back somewhat later tonight, since Helen invited them to stay for dinner, and Clint wants to find various gifts for the package he’s sending back home to Laura and the kids.

He snorts a laugh. “Nobody’s ready for that. But I got some tips from Tasha. Who agreed not to come along for your sanity’s sake.”

“She’s never going to forgive me, is she?”

“Maybe in a decade or two. Gotta say, Maria, you fucked up pretty damn good. Mind you,” he adds as he finishes off the last few checks, “it seems to be the year for it.” And he twists around to glance at the Quinjet cabin. “All cleared and stowed? Let’s get this circus on the road...”

Maria waits until they’re out over the South China Sea before noting, “You’re taking it better than Romanoff.”

“Or I’m just hiding it better.” Clint glances sideways at her. “I get it, you know. You think you don’t matter – you’re the human one, the ordinary one, the one who doesn’t bring anything crucial to the table – nothing some other schmuck could do. So you think don’t matter the way other people do. Which, tied in with your background and the way Pierce and his cohort tried to fuck you over while we were in S.H.I.E.L.D, is an understandable conclusion.”

“And here comes the but.”

“ _I like big ‘but’s and I cannot lie..._ Yeah, it’s a big one. It’s a stupid-ass conclusion, as Fury would probably say, and you should have known better.”

“How do you know he already didn’t?”

Clint shrugs. “And, yeah, being among the Avengers fucks your brain up good, but you worked with us for, what? A year? Nearly two. And there was Cap working with S.H.I.E.L.D and Tasha before that, and I know Fury would throw you over to Stark Industries to deal with Stark and Banner and Pepper from time to time...”

“Get to the point.”

“You ran away from us. And all I can think is, ‘ _Is she really that dumb that she doesn’t get that she matters too?_ ’”

Maria’s not entirely sure what he’s saying. She’s not sure he knows either, but she can at least deny one thing. “I didn’t run away from you. You weren’t even on the active roster at the time.”

“Details, details. Look, I don’t want an explanation.” Clint gives her a razor-sharp look. and it cuts like a blade of disappointment in her guts. “I’m not even sure there’s any defence you can make. You done stupid, Maria.”

She sighs. It’s nothing that she hasn’t heard from Pepper and Natasha and Fury already. But it’s starting to hurt, just a little. Particularly since she’s coming to the same conclusion. Running away from a group of people with this much influence and this much intel _was_ stupid. If nothing else, they would have wanted to know what became of her.

But after a lifetime of being the unwanted addition – the one who had to prove herself over and over and over – it had been hard to believe that she really did matter to the Avengers – either individually or collectively.

And is it easier now that they’re taking an interest? Now that they’ve got time on their hands and a sense of loss as they try to work out what they’re going to be in the world that’s come to fruition in the rending of the old? It’s certainly harder to ignore when Clint is flying her to her appointments in Seoul, and Pepper is asking about how she’s dealing with Steve, and Steve is telling her she needs a keeper and looking like he’d half offer to do the job himself.

Natasha hasn’t said anything more about Maria’s decision to run away, but she turns up in the gym when Maria’s there to stretch, and falls into the _tai chi_ moves that Melinda taught them both. Conversations are casual and yet studded with a politeness that stings.

Lang has started turning up during Maria’s sessions with Sam, as she goes through data analysis with him, explaining the conclusions she reaches and how. They’re not entirely comfortable with it – not yet – but they’ll develop that with time and experience. Certainly Lang is starting to see all the background to the heroics – the information that’s gathered, processed, sorted, and chosen long before anyone goes out into the field.

_God, it makes me want to go back to petty thievery. At least that was simple. And you’ve done this ever since you got into S.H.I.E.L.D? And you’re not batshit insane yet?_

_Batshit insane a matter of interpretation,_ Maria told him, while Sam laughed his ass off.

But that’s not the weird part.

Yesterday, Wanda turned up at lunchtime with two bowls of _matzoh_ soup, one of them wafting along in a scarlet cloud behind her. She’d put the one in her hands in front of Maria, set the other one down on the table before her, and said, with all the imperious manner of a queen, “ _You have not yet had lunch_. _Eat._ ” Maria figured it was the closest thing to an apology she was going to get from the young woman, and ate. Her attempts at polite conversation were met with dead-end answers and pointed slurps of soup. And when she was finished, Wanda whisked the bowls away, walking out of the office without a word.

Maria filed that under ‘grudging apology’.

“So,” Clint says, as they follow the marked-out flight path over the sea. “Silence means assent, right?”

Maria exhales. “If there’s no defence I can make, there’s no point in arguing, is there?”

“You could argue just to be bloody-minded. But you’re not. Plain old mule-ass stubborn? Sure. But not bloody-minded.”

“And if you’ve finished a catalogue of my faults and failings...?”

“That would take much longer than the hour of flight time we have. But I’m willing to be magnanimous. We can discuss other topics. Like that guy you’re seeing in the city. Sam says he’s charming, and Steve says it’s serious. Guess he’d know.”

She sees the sharp-eyed glance he gives her, but ignores it. “Nate is off-limits, Clint.”

“How do you know Natasha hasn’t already looked him up?”

“She already did – back the first time I was seeing him.” And yes, Maria had vetted Nate herself, knowing perfectly well the risks she was taking in getting into bed with a man – any man. Because a man could fuck anyone he liked, but a woman’s loyalty and capability were in question the instant she took a lover.

_Director Pierce questions your loyalty in light of your relationship with Captain Rogers._

It was irony that she hadn’t been in an intimate relationship with Steve then, while by the time she was, nobody had batted an eyelash – there’d been nobody to bat one. And in the end, she hadn’t needed Jasper Sitwell and HYDRA to sabotage her relationship with Steve; she’d done that very effectively herself.

“Did Fury run him through the wringer?”

“Both then and now.” Maria answers. And Nate had come back completely clean both times.

Not a hero, not a villain, just an ordinary man who’d fallen in love with an ordinary woman once upon a time.

Unfortunate for him that the ordinary woman had gone and gotten herself involved in the absurd and ridiculous world of superheroes. Worse that she’d gone and had a fling with Captain America while she was at it.

Maria grimaces out the side window. She still hasn’t told Nate about Steve, although Nate is intelligent enough to realise she wasn’t exactly chaste when she thought he was dead. But now that the Avengers are actually in Madripoor it’s many kinds of awkward. She doesn’t want Nate to think that she’s not taking him up on his offer because she still carries a torch for Steve Rogers. Even if Steve was in the picture – and, given Sharon, he’s most definitely not – she doesn’t think she can go back to Nate.

And she needs to tell him that soon.

She sighs. This is what her brain thinks about when she doesn’t have work to occupy it.

“Regrets?”

“And you have none?”

“Maybe a couple. So, if Nate is off-limits, does that mean—”

“Also off-limits,” Maria says before he can start getting into things she doesn’t want to get into. Not with him, not with anyone, not now, not ever. “Can we just be silent for this trip at least?”

“We can.”

They’re silent all the way to Seoul, until Clint’s powered down.

“Maria.”

She’s just unclipped her belt. He’s staring out the window at the city, his hands still resting on the pilot’s yoke, in neutral.

“Laura once said the Avengers needed me. I was joking that I was the odd man out among the others – the circus freak, really – and that I knew I didn’t belong. Her comment was that they were a mess and they needed me.” Now Clint looks at her, sharp and focused, the archer with the unerring eye and the ability to hit the target in just about any situation.  “We needed you when the shit with the Accords went down – someone to give us a third option, and navigate through the crap. And, yeah, you were kind of in recovery, which wasn’t exactly avoidable. But when you ran away, you let yourself think you didn’t matter. That this,” he twirls a finger, indicating them, indicating himself, the Quinjet, and somehow the Avengers, “didn’t count for anything. And that wasn’t just stupid, it was willful and blind and a bad situational assessment. And both Phil and Fury taught you better than that.”

“And the moral of the story is...?”

“You’re important to us, Maria – to us individually and to us as the Avengers.” Clint shrugs. “You’ve seen our shit go down screaming, and you’ve scraped the pieces back together afterwards. Then you’ve kicked us back out to do the job because the world needed us to be Avengers – and we needed to be Avengers, too. Well, the world needs you to keep scraping the pieces back together and kicking us out to do our job – as the last two months have shown. And in return, we’ll look after you – if you let us.”

Maria watches as a flashy red car – no more than a dot on the distant expressway – zips in and out of traffic, weaving dangerously through the other cars. But Clint’s waiting for an answer, and he’s not going to wait forever. “Okay.”

“That’s it? ‘Okay’?”

“I let you fly me out here from Madripoor,” she points out. “And listened to your lecture. And I haven’t run screaming yet.”

Although she’s been contemplating it. Something in her wants to just shut it all down and go away. But she’s tried that once and failed. She already knows she won’t survive it a second time.

What she cannot change, the universe had damn well better grant her the patience to accept.

“Yeah, last time you just ran.” Clint huffs out a long breath and waves a hand towards the hold. “Fine. Go. Be scanned and fixed and whatever. But don’t be stupid again, Maria. You’re more than that and if you didn’t know it before, you’d better know it now.”

And that’s told her.

She gets up, starts to head out, then turns around.

“Barton?” He peers back into the hold and she manages a smile. “Thanks.”

“I charge by the hour and my bill is in the post. Get on.”

Maria gets on, but feels rather lighter in spirit as she goes.

–

When she gets back from the city, Maria heads for the communal kitchen to put her cargo away, and finds Steve just opening the fridge, apparently on the hunt for a late evening snack.

“Hey.” He closes the fridge, but doesn’t let go of the door as he looks at her dinner dress and jacket. “You look nice.”

“I had dinner with Jessan Hoan,” she explains, resisting the urge to smooth the dress waist.

His eyes narrow slightly as they study her face, then drift to what she’s carrying. “And the bag?”

“Leftovers.” She places the insulated bag on the bench. “Jessan always orders too much. Have some if you’re hungry.”

Steve reaches over the counter, tugging the bag towards him. “It’s still warm. How’s Ms. Hoan doing?”

“Jessan is fine. It was a good dinner.”

“Did you discuss the Avengers?”

“A little. Mostly we discussed the regional politics and the reactions to the Accords here as compared to Europe.”

He looks up as he pulled the boxes out, laying them out on the counter. “There’s a difference?”

“Not all of the countries on this side of the Pacific signed the Accords. Admittedly, Madripoor was the first to refuse to sign rather than politely ignoring the UN, but it’s always been something of a wildcard when it comes to international politics.”

“I don’t imagine the Hoans like being told what to do. Although they don’t seem to mind if the shoe is on the other foot.”

Maria stares at him for a long moment as he opens containers, checking their contents with pointed unconcern. “If that’s your way of asking if the Hoans are pulling my strings—”

“They want you. Not us, not the facility – you.” Steve rests his hands on the bench, and she recognises the battle-ready stance from the way his shoulders set. “The Avengers are just the bargaining chip they’re using as bait.”

Her world goes hot and bright, then sharp and cold, like ice. And here it is again; she will never be free of the millstone around her soul – her allegiances questioned, her rights forfeited, her motives required of her in a way that will never be required of him. Because he’s a hero and his reasons go without saying, while she’s just a woman.

Maria looks at him, expressionless. “Are you questioning my loyalty, Steve?”

Is that a flicker of guilt that skims across his face? Does that make it any better? He’s still in the battle stance, ready to fight. “I’m questioning how far they’ll go to buy it.”

“You assume I can be bought.”

“Everyone has a price.”

“And yet nobody ever asks what’s yours. Then again, after the manhunt for Barnes, I suppose nobody needs to.” It’s not a nice thing to say, but Maria never had pretensions to being nice. And it hurts to have this demanded of her – by him, of all people.

At least Fury understood after DC – after she shot Rogers down in helicarriers and trailing flame and walked out of the Triskelion, dodging pieces of falling helicarrier along the way. Even Stark saw the shape of it when he realised she’d been working with Fury all the time she’d been working with Pepper and Stark Industries.

“My price, Steve, is the safety and security of Earth, against whoever or whatever would threaten it. Seven billion people – most of whom don’t have a supersoldier serum, or billions in technology – who want nothing more than to live, love, and thrive through the next alien invasion or attack of the murderbots. Who only want to feel safe when they go to bed at night and when they wake up in the morning – and not be confronted daily with the truth that they’re helpless in the face of gods and monsters.”

Maria watches him wince, and thinks that the realisation he never really understood her shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. After all, in a world of black and white, there’s no room for those who bleed red, is there?

“My loyalty is to _Earth_ , Steve. And I will put everything on the line for it – from you and the Avengers, to myself and everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D who swore to protect the world while doing their best not to cage it. _That_ is what I can be bought for – and Jessan Hoan can’t promise me that any more than you and the Avengers can.”

He looks at her keenly for another few moments, then looks down at the boxes of food arrayed on the table. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” Maria lets the question sit there, and when it becomes clear that he’s not going to be able to answer it, she sighs. “I’ve known Jessan for nearly twelve years, Steve. I know what she wants and that hosting the Avengers are her bargaining chip. I’m even willing to accommodate it to a certain degree, because I don’t otherwise have the resources to protect the world.” She manages a weary smile. “As compromises go, it’s not a terrible one.”

“You shouldn’t have to compromise.”

“I don’t live in your world Steve. I’m not a legend that people will follow into hell and back, or a technological genius billionaire playboy, or a hero. I have to use what I have, and bargain for what I don’t. So, yes the Hoans are trying to coax me around to working for them, and they’ll use this Facility and the Avengers as leverage.”

“And the day they throw their weight on it?”

“Is the day I walk away from them.” Maria shrugs. “It won’t come to that. Jessan has a very good idea of how far she can push me, and she’ll keep Baran leashed, whatever his ambitions. In the meantime, the connection is useful.”

Steve makes a noise like a laugh as he begins to pry open the boxes, only there’s no amusement in it, just a stinging bitterness that aches in her. “Is everything in your life is calculated to be useful?”

“Not everything,” she says quietly before she can stop herself.

He looks up, started and arrested.

“Anyway,” Maria begins hastily, turning away. “Enjoy the leftovers—”

“Maria.” He hesitates for a moment, as though waiting to see if she’ll walk out without answering. And she’s tempted. So very tempted. But he continues when she pauses halfway across the room. “What went wrong? With us?”

“Does it matter?”

“If it was something I did, something I failed to do, then yes, it does.”

Maria exhales and turns around. She doesn’t want to have this conversation, but maybe she owes him this – one last post-mortem, setting him free to move on. “It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do, Steve.” _It was just who you are._

“But you couldn’t look me in the eye and tell me we were over.”

“That’s on me.”

“I wouldn’t have smothered you. I barely even—” His expression shows the depth of his frustration. “You set the lines for how we were going to interact, and I kept to them. But that wasn’t enough for you.”

“It wasn’t you, Steve. It was me. I...wasn’t ready for a relationship with anyone. I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

It’s hard to say, even now, knowing what she now knows, understanding what she did to herself – and why. The Marines severed her from her right to be female and everything she wanted to be. S.H.I.E.L.D allowed her to be everything she wanted to be and female, but not sexual, not personal – not if she was going to do what needed to be done.  And so accepting the interest of Steve Rogers, Captain America wasn’t just unwise but taboo by all the lessons she’d learned in the course of her career, even after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.

No wonder she’d cut and run.

“You left without saying anything, and then couldn’t even give me the courtesy of a phone call to say we were done.”

“I’m sorry. I should have—” But ‘should’ves’ are useless now. “If it helps, think of me as broken.”

“It doesn’t.” Steve starts to say something then shakes his head and turns away.

Maria takes that as her cue, and turns, only to turn back when he calls her name. She meets his gaze, intent and blue and full of something that might be sadness. “You’re not broken,” Steve says. After a moment, he looks down at his hands. “Not to me, you’re not.”

Maria thinks she understands that now – or, at least, is in a better position to understand that after everything that’s happened. Too late for their relationship. Too late for anything but forgiveness.

“Steve.” She waits for him to look at her. “That’s why I had to leave.”


	6. consequences and choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy cow, did this chapter take a while to finish! I apologise for the lengthy delay in programming; I travelled and I wrote and I had assignments that took priority, and then I just couldn't find the right tone for the story.
> 
> One more chapter to go - we shall hope for before Christmas. :)

 

Steve is on one of the balconies overlooking the sea, sketching city faces from memory when Sam leans in through the doorway. “Hey, you’re gonna want to see this.”

Following Sam through the complex to the lounge, Steve finds most of the team already there – Wanda curled up on the couch, her legs under her, hands clenched; Barton leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, Scott standing behind them with his arms crossed, Natasha resting her fingertips on the back of the couch – all of them watching the screen.

One of the local international channels is showing an American reporter talking about the containment of a dangerous bio-terrorist, Otto Gunther Octavius, while the screen behind her shows footage of a fight – _LIVE in New York_ says the note in the bottom right hand corner.

Bio-terrorist Octavius might be, but his abilities appear more technological than biological – long metal tenatacles that whip through the air around him. Given the way they’re cutting through metal and tipping cars over, they’re sharp and strong. In the background, the scarlet and blue clad kid from Queens – _Spiderman_ – whizzes past the lens of the camera, even as a metallic tentacle snaps his line. Steve catches his breath but the kid has already flung out one arm to anchor himself with another line, and his trajectory changes, looping him under another metal tentacle. He snags it as he goes by, hauling the arm up and away from cowering bystanders.

The camera jerks as a fiery blast hits the anchored tentacle.

“Oh, here he comes,” mutters Barton.

And, indeed, a moment later, the camera turns to follow the scarlet and gold of the Iron Man suit, dodging Octavius’s tentacles, even as the bio-terrorist turns to face the new threat.

As the reporter talks about how this is the Avengers’ first public appearance since the incident in Berlin during which the renegade elements of the superhero team trashed an airport, causing billions in damage, Scott mutters something about Stark never missing an opportunity for PR.

“Or,” says Pepper crisply from the doorway, “He might be responding to the fact that there’s a threat that needs neutralising.”

Behind her, Maria steps into the room, moving so she has an unimpeded view of the screen. “It can be both,” she says. “And the Avengers could certainly do with some good PR after Europe.”

“If only that was all it took,” Natasha murmurs drolly.

As the others start debating the question of action and interaction, Steve thinks of Vision talking about the rise in incidents requiring superhero intervention, and the carefully neutral observation that the Avengers’ existence was, in itself, a challenge to anyone who thought to carve out a little piece of the world. The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle – or, he thinks without humour, the supersoldier is out of the ice. The world can’t go back to what it was, can’t return to the comfortable oblivion of the last seventy years. It’s just not possible, and even if it were, it’s short-sighted.

_Progress isn’t always a comfortable beast,_ Howard had said one night while working over one of the energy weapons they’d taken off the Red Skull, trying to get it working again after some power conduit got twisted, _but by god, if we don’t tame it, then we’re at it’s mercy. And hell if I’m going to sit by and let it savage me and mine._

He can almost hear Tony saying, _Fine, we’ll get it in place, let everything settle, then start working on it..._

It’s not that he can’t see Tony’s perspective on it, only that those amendments would have come too late for Wanda’s state of mind, trapped in political limbo, the epitome of everything the world had been taught to fear. It wouldn’t have been enough to cover Bucky, who was, in the end, only a pawn – to HYDRA, to the CIA, to Zemo.

It wouldn’t have been enough to protect the world against the things that needed to be fought– not just the things that the Accords signatories thought needed to be fought.

“Stark has things in hand this round,” Maria says.

“Stark and an underage kid.” Barton turns towards her. “Who’s looking out for _him_?”

“You’d be surprised,” is her answer. “Or maybe not.”

It’s a reference of some kind, because Barton looks to Natasha, who shrugs, and they leave it at that.

“Perhaps he wouldn’t be surprised,” Wanda says with deceptive mildness, “But I am. Considering how they treated me.”

It’s Maria who answers, of course. “The difference between the Scarlet Witch and Spiderman is that Spiderman is a young American male, and hasn’t yet been seen blowing things up – whether by accident or otherwise.” Her tone is level, her expression in the carefully professional neutral that took Steve months to learn meant she was holding back annoyance or anger. “However, at some point, they’ll leverage what he’s capable of against public opinion, at which point he’ll lose, the same as the rest of you did.”

“You know,” Scott remarks, offhand, “I always figured as the former crim, I’d be the cynical one around here. But Jesus Christ, Hill, I’m outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, _and_ outplanned.”

“And I suppose you have a plan for confining him, the way you had one for confining us?”

“Wanda.” Clint frowns.

Wanda’s mouth tightens in defiance, with a hint of abashed. She looks to Steve, who shakes his head. Now is not the time, here is not the place, and Maria shouldn’t be the target. Sure, there’s angry – which Wanda has a right to be, given how the Accords treated her – but there’s also biting a hand that’s been stretched out in assistance. However Wanda feels about Maria personally, letting it bleed into what needs to be a professional relationship is asking for trouble.

The irony isn’t lost on Steve.

“There will be options available to him, if and when he needs them,” Maria says, still in controlled neutral. “Unfortunately, the Avengers have changed the world and the way the world sees powered individuals, so there’s no way back – there’s only forward.”

Not for the first time since their conversation in the kitchen, Steve wonders at her. Think of her as broken? He doesn’t know anyone more whole and holding-it-together than Maria – who can scrape together the fragments to make something out them that’s strong enough to hold together, whether it’s a falling helicarrier, a collapsing intelligence organisation, or a sanctuary for the most famous and infamous group of people in the world.

Her brows twitch down and together, and she looks at Steve, as though she heard his thought. Then there’s a buzzing noise and she fishes out her phone. Her eyes narrow at the display and she heads out into the corridor, her voice fading as she answers, “This is Hill.”

Steve nearly follows her out, remembering Fury’s earlier call. Then Pepper shifts her position. Her eyes meet Steve’s. And Steve remembers the first day in Madripoor, and the flare of her eyes as she shoved him out of the observation room, protective of Maria’s personal space and privacy.

He stays where he is and watches as, on the screen, Stark and the kid from Queens – Parker? – hold Octavius down as the battle moves across the city, away from the video crews, and the camera view switches to an airborne view – a chopper has moved in, close enough to get decent footage.

“I thought there’s a precribed ‘safe airspace’ for civilian aircraft,” Sam murmurs, looking over at Barton.

“There is.” Barton sounds grim. “They’re not following it.”

It’s difficult to watch – to watch and not be able to do anything about it. But if, as Maria says, they’re the resistance rather than the frontline, he’s going to have to get used to it.

He’s going to have to get used to a lot of things.

Like being an internationally wanted and recognisable criminal.

Like not being the one to run in and deal with the problems when they turn up.

Like not being privy to whatever’s going in world security if Maria chooses to keep it from him.

Sometimes Steve finds it hard to remember the years before the serum – the sensation of not being able to do anything, of watching something unfold over which he has no control. He’s felt it rather more than he likes lately – starting with the split over the Accords.

But now, as then, he’s helpless. There are things beyond his control.

The reporter has stepped into the frame and is reporting, wavy blonde hair and a tailored business jacket over a white shirt.

Something about the way she holds herself – inviting the viewer to connect with her – makes Steve recall that if there are things beyond his control, there are some things still within his grasp.

\--

Sharon is pleased to hear from him; Steve can hear it in the warming of her voice, the way she gently leans into the conversation. There’s no guessing with Sharon; she’s calm and pleasant, but she’s not distant.

“It’s not the most thrilling job in the world, maybe,” she says of her work with a former S.H.I.E.L.D agent who’s been looking into elevated levels of gamma radiation in fleeing Syrian refugees. There’s still no news on Bruce’s whereabouts, but clearly Maria thought it was worth looking into. “But it keeps me going until I get my accounts back.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

She snorts. “Why? I chose what I did. You didn’t coerce me, Steve.”

No, he didn’t. But he still feels weirdly guilty about it – as though the attraction between them was something he deliberately leveraged.

“It’s good to hear that you’ve got a job,” he says instead, kicking at the gravel path of the city gardens he’s walking in – after Pepper’s request he didn’t feel comfortable making this call in the facility. “And I’m glad you’re okay. I didn’t know how to get in contact with you after.”

“Well, we weren’t exactly in a position to exchange numbers.” Her voice lilts with the invitation that was one of the things Steve always liked about her, even back before he knew who she was working for – an invitation that could be taken or left, as he wished.

He can take it up now, put a foot in that door, even if he doesn’t have to step through until after Maria’s left Madripoor for...wherever she’s going. Sharon will understand. And yet...

“I’m not exactly in a position to exchange numbers now,” he admits as he looks around at the city. “Things are...in flux.”

“Aren’t they always?” There’s a rueful note in her voice. “Well, we can catch up the next time you’re in town.”

He’s about to agree, but over on one of the pathways, a wheelchair crosses his line of sight, then turns and faces him, the occupant meeting his gaze in something that feels like a challenge, never mind that any kind of contest between them would be impossible.

“Steve?”

Steve recollects himself. “Yes, we can. Next time. We will. Look, it was good to talk to you, Sharon—”

“People to save, crises to avert?”

The quip, light and dry, makes him smile, albeit with a hint of ruefulness. “Something like that. Take care.”

“You, too, Steve.”

He can imagine the wistful look on Sharon’s face as she hangs up. A softer expression, maybe a little wry, with none of the careful distance Maria always affected. And, not for the first time, he wonders why he never takes Sharon up on her offers. Even after Maria was gone, he always stepped carefully around Sharon – around the idea of a relationship with her.

_What do you need?_ Sam had asked. _An engraved invitation? I mean, yeah, you’re still burned over Maria – hell, I’m burned about Maria – but this is not a time to start going back to taking baby steps._

Perhaps Sharon hadn’t issued engraved invitations, but she’d definitely left the door open for more; Steve had just never stepped through.

Crossing the lawn to meet the man who’s still watching him from the wheelchair, Steve thinks maybe it’s time he took the closure Maria was offering him and stepped through Sharon’s door instead. Maybe it would be nice not to have to fight a woman by inches to be in a relationship with her.

_God’s righteous soldier; thinking you could live without a fight._

He puts Ultron’s indictment out of mind as he stops just off the path from Pryor. And suddenly remembers that he’s wearing a face mesh, and that only a handful of people should be able to recognise him behind it. He tenses, senses going battle-ready, even as the man arches his brows.

“Captain Rogers, I presume?”

“How’d you know?”

Nathan Pryor shrugged. “Body language is harder to change than a face, if you know what to look for. Technology can change the look and sound of things, but physicality is a different thing.” The smile is faint and glittering, sharp with edges that aren’t exactly comforting. “Maria says it involves thinking like someone else and claims she’s not very good at it.”

“I can’t say,” Steve says after a moment. “I’ve never seen her undercover.”

“Then that makes both of us.” Pryor indicates the wide path. “Do you mind? The chair doesn’t move well on the grass.”

Steve stays off the path, leaving space for the other man – Maria’s lover, he reminds himself with a sick twist in his gut – to wheel alongside him. But Pryor is silent, his gaze wandering across the lawns and shrubs of the gardens, as though he has nothing to say to Steve, although he was the one who initiated this meeting.

“I... Uh... I heard you were injured during the Chitauri invasion.” One more casualty of the Avengers. “I’m sorry.”

“For saving the world? Somehow I doubt that. It was a war, and I was just part of the collateral damage.”

The statement is matter of fact, and yet Steve feels awkward and uncomfortable as he tucks his hands into his jacket and tries to think of something to say. Was this how Tony felt, confronted with Charlie Spencer’s mother – someone with the shadow of irrevocable loss hanging over them? Pryor doesn’t seem bitter about it; although the sardonic tone suggests he’s not quite resigned.

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“No, but it’s the truth.” The man’s eyes glitter as he smiles, in a rather pointed way. “Not a pleasant truth for an American, perhaps – we’re more used to _creating_ the collateral damage than _being_ it – but it’s still the reality. You did what you had to do and I was one of the consequences. And between me in a wheelchair and the end of the world, guess what? I’ll take me in a wheelchair.. But living with what comes after is always the difficult part. Particularly when the consequences are largely a result of someone else’s choices.”

Consequences and choices.

_And the Avengers...went home._

Steve thinks of Wanda, watching the news rehash the consequences of her actions over and over and over. He remembers her and Pietro telling the story of their family. _For two days, we wait for Tony Stark to kill us._

“We can’t stop what comes after. We just have to live with it.”

It was the right thing to say to Wanda at the time, but it sounds...trite when said to Pryor. The loss of life may be harder to live with in the moment, but after a while the dead blur, while pain and inconvenience is a daily renewal of recollection.

“Sometimes living with it entails walking away from everything you’ve known, and everything you’ve wanted for your life.”

“Is that what you did?”

“They found me in the wreckage, nearly four hours after the battle. I was actually one of the lucky ones – they found me early. But I was in a coma for nine months and when I woke up, the world had moved on.” He gives Steve a sideways glance. “I imagine you know something of how that feels.”

Steve winces, but answers with the same dry understatement. “A little, perhaps.”

The smile flashes, brief and sardonic. “I chose not to try to go back to where I’d been – to _who_ I’d been. They’d moved on, rebuilt their lives. And I had to learn to live with what had happened to me.”

“And didn’t try to contact Maria?”

Even as he asks the question, Steve regrets bringing her into the conversation, as though she’s the bone of contention between them. She’s not the bone of contention; she’s the only point of contact.

But Pryor doesn’t react, his hands moving steady on the wheel rims of his chair, propelling himself along without conscious thought. They reach a split in the path, and Pryor’s chair takes the turn that leads back around the edge of the park without consulting Steve, simply assuming he’ll follow.

Which he does, because he wants to know more about this man. He’s trying to see what Maria saw in this man that she can’t see in Steve. Wants to understand why she’s ‘broken’ when it comes to Steve, but can let Pryor take her in his lap and spin her around here in this very park. Wants to get past the bitter sting of her rejection and silence, starting with understanding why a man would walk away from Maria Hill without her walking away from him first.

“I thought about it,” Pryor admits after a few moments. “But she didn’t need me in her life - Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, second-in-command to The Fury himself. I’d have only been a liability.”

“Love isn’t a liability.”

“It is for her.” A sideward glance. “You of all people should know that.”

There’s a moment when he tenses, as though for a fight. The idiocy of it strikes him a moment later –even if it could be fair fight, Steve wouldn’t. Maria makes her own choices, and she’s chosen for Pryor.

“I’m not—” He starts again. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

The wheelchair spins to face him, and Pryor looks him in the eye, “I didn’t figure so. But...call me curious. I wanted to see what kind of man you were. Wouldn’t you, in my position?”

_You, of all people, are surprised that Maria is a hero’s type?_

“Maybe.” Steve swallows and wonders if he should point out that Maria never mentioned Pryor. But that seems unnecessarily cruel, and pointless besides. Steve hadn’t demanded Maria’s sexual history, anymore than Maria had required him to disclose what he’d gotten up to with the Howling Commandoes during the war. “Are you satisfied?”

“Sort of.” Pryor smiles, and the curve of his mouth has a hint of mockery to it as he looks at Steve. “It’s one thing to know that Maria’s last boyfriend was Captain America; it’s something else to be confronted by the reality.”

“I’m not Captain America anymore.”

“Maybe not in name.” Pryor’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he touches his hand to it without looking away from Steve. “But there are some things you can leave behind when you walk away from your old life, and there are some things you can’t. And sometimes you learn that only after you’ve walked away.” The smile is sharp and gleaming before he glances down at the screen, and his expression becomes distant and polite. “I’m afraid I have to take this call, Captain. We’ll part ways here, and I’ll wish you a good afternoon.”

And just that briskly, the conversation is done. Pryor fits an earpiece on and starts a conversation with someone who launches straight into a summary of the financial situation in Pyongang right now.

Steve watches him wheel away and thinks that dismissal was worthy of Maria.

\--

The trip back to the facility gives Steve a lot of time to think about the conversation with Pryor.

Consequences and choices.

Choices and consequences.

Zemo refused to accept that his wife and son were nothing more than an accident – collateral damage in a war that nobody had chosen but the Avengers had fought because it needed to be done. Where grief drove Charlie Spencer’s mother to confront Stark; it drove Zemo to seek to destroy the Avengers.

The Maximoffs refused to accept their own helplessness – offering themselves up for Strucker’s medical experimentation.

_He’s fast and she’s weird._

_Who even does that?_

Steve had answered her coolly at the time, chilled by the realisation that she didn’t understand him at all. Only now, a year later, does he realise that perhaps it was he who failed to understand her.

Steve changed his destiny by refusing to accept what he could do – pick scrap and help the war from American shores – and in the refusal, became a hero. It’s told as a tale to admire in the exhibition at the Museum of American History, the stuff of which legends are made. Maybe it is.

And yet how many ticking time bombs have the Avengers created in the hearts of people who watched their world come apart, then looked at Steve Rogers, little guy, and Captain America, national hero, and wondered how they could be _more_ , too? Are there enough people looking out for the world to keep chaos from reigning?

Peggy started S.H.I.E.L.D to protect the world and, if Steve is honest with himself, S.H.I.E.L.D did a decent-enough job of it for seventy years, even as it was being used as a disguise by HYDRA. And Maria watched SHIELD come down – helped bring it down, even – with a mind to protect the world with what was left, using whatever she had to hand.

_I have to use what I have, and bargain for what I don’t. I don’t otherwise have the resources to protect the world._

Maria wouldn’t have asked to be more – not the way the Maximoffs did, not the way Steve did, not for a war, not for anything. If she can’t protect the world with what she has – if she can’t be the ordinary person fighting back with no powers, no technology, and no specialised training – then she’ll beg and bargain and borrow whatever she has to in order to get the job done.

Choices and consequences.

_I was just part of the collateral damage._

And so was he, Steve realises.

_My loyalty is to_ _Earth_ _, Steve. And I will put everything on the line for it – from you and the Avengers, to myself and everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D who swore to protect the world..._

Steve pulls the black sedan into the undercover garage, and wonders how Pryor’s going to reconcile Maria’s willingness to go in to bat for the world with his decision to leave what he’d been and known behind.

It’s none of his business, he tells himself. Not anymore.

He takes the elevators up to the lobby area, and finds a message waiting for him on the household ‘message assistant’. It’s nothing like JARVIS used to be, or even the Facility AI whom nobody ever named and who had all the personality of gruel, although Sam would occasionally reference it as ‘Ceiling Cat’. It prepares him for the woman sitting in the chair outside his living quarters, tapping away on her phone.

“Steve.”

“Natasha.”

“How’s Sharon?”

“She’s fine.” He doesn’t open the door to his rooms, choosing to stand outside, choosing not to elaborate on his discussion – he noticed the subtle antagonism between the two women in Vienna, even if he didn’t comment on it. Maybe he _is_ starting to understand a little more about women. The pang of Peggy’s voice, young and light and exasperated makes him a little sharper than he might have been otherwise. “What did you want?”

“Straight to the point. I spoke with T’Challa last night.” Her expression is careful, with the neutrality Steve has learned to associate with Natasha measuring the situation. “His people have some ideas about a deprogramming solution for Bucky.”

“And?”

She takes a deep breath. “Some of the techniques they’re talking about - S.H.I.E.L.D used them to unscramble me when Clint brought me in.”

“HYDRA techniques.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D wasn’t _all_ HYDRA, Steve.” Natasha’s eyes flash. “And the Wakandans came up with these ideas on their own – I’m just using S.H.I.E.L.D as the benchmark.”

“What they did to you isn’t the same as what they did to Bucky.”

“No,” Natasha agrees. “Which is why they’re just ideas right now. But working through it it might be enough that he won’t have to worry about someone else co-opting his will again.”

“Might be?”

“The only way to know is to try.”

Steve nods. “You recognised some of what the Wakandans are suggesting?” It’s an oblique question; Natasha has never explicitly said that she was brainwashed while she worked for the Red Room, but there are hints that whatever she underwent there, it was traumatic.

“No. I wasn’t exactly in a position to observe what was done. But Maria was. Not all of it, but most of it. Yes, I went with it to her before I brought it to you. She’s going to get in contact with someone who does know the medical details and liaise with T’Challa’s people about it.”

“I’d like to be kept in on that loop.”

“Then you should speak with Maria about it.” Natasha pauses, as though weighing up an internal decision. “Steve, he may never be whole again.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

It’s not a question Steve is entirely comfortable answering straight away. Yes, he wants Bucky back – the Bucky who remembers how everything was, who knew Steve Rogers, little guy, long before he became Captain America. And yet that Bucky isn’t entirely there anymore, buried beneath years of war and a long bloody history of death and destruction.

He realises that now, as he maybe didn’t let it sink in back when he first found Bucky again.

_You have lived in the past too long, chasing your ghosts. But they do not need your protection anymore._

And, in the end, this isn’t about him and what he wants. Or it shouldn’t be. It should be about Bucky and what he’s willing to do to regain his ability to choose.

He doesn’t let himself think about it.

“So you spoke with T’Challa. Just about Bucky?”

“Spoke with, consulted, apologised for shooting him, got an invitation to visit sometime.” She says it airily, as though it’s nothing. Maybe it is. As fond as he is of Natasha, she’s very much like a cat – her own person, her own mind, her own will, and nobody can gainsay her if she so chooses.

“And you’re taking a raincheck?”

“For the moment.” A shrug. “If Maria goes in to Wakanda to oversee Bucky’s deprogramming, I’ll go in and take a look at things. Until then, making it obvious we took refuge in Wakanda is only going to cause trouble for T’Challa.”

“‘Take a look at things’?” Steve frowns. “Don’t you trust Maria?”

“Of course. But I’m curious what they did to him – how much of it overlaps with what they did to me.” Natasha shrugs and fluffs her hair. “Call it professional curiosity.”

Steve watches the grooming gesture, and waits for whatever it is that has her discomforted. She sees his gaze and drops her hands to her sides.

“So have you forgiven me for supporting the Accords yet?”

_Ah_. “Is there something to forgive?”

“I don’t know; is there?”

Her habit of turning questions back on him is a little annoying. “I guess it wouldn’t help if I told you to go forth and sin no more?”

“I don’t think our ideas of ‘sin’ match, Steve, so I’d only reoffend.” Her smile is faint. “The Accords have the right idea – we do need to operate under some kind of authority.”

“Our own.”

“Are we in a place to make that judgement call?” Natasha tilts her head at him. “When we have all this power among us – the power and influence to change the world – do we have the right to always say ‘this is what we think needs to be done’ when we don’t really have to live with the consequences?”

Steve suddenly thinks of Nathan Pryor, collateral damage in a war he didn’t start and couldn’t have fought in, even before he ended up in a wheelchair.

But he supposes that’s not not what Natasha’s question is about. “Who _does_ have the right to tell us what to do if we don’t?”

“Someone who isn’t an Avenger and never will be, but who knows us – what we do and why we do it. Someone who has the bigger picture in mind, but can put it aside to focus on the smaller things, too. And even that’s not a right. More like...advice.”

“The Avengers Advisory.” Steve snorts, imagining Maria’s face if someone suggested that to her. Then he glances up at Natasha. “The Hoans are trying to buy her, you know.”

“When haven’t they been?” One shoulder twitches. “They’re persistent, I’ll give them that. Although now they have a better reason than ever: acquire one Maria Hill, get the Stark Industries CEO, and six renegade Avengers for free!”

“Over our dead bodies.”

Natasha shrugs again. “The truth is that they only really need Maria. Heroes are replaceable these days, but someone who can find the resources to build a facility like this while in recovery from cancer? Is someone we want on our side.”

“ _Our_ side?”

“Well, _my_ side. I’d persuade Maria first, and just let her decide how she’s going to conquer the world.” The smirk invites playfulness. Steve smiles in spite of himself. The idea of Maria in charge of the world is just a little bit terrifying. Add Pepper to it, and, well...

“Just give me advance warning so I know to find a bunker and get out of the way.”

Natasha smiles – that slow and dangerous grin that Steve first learned to distrust back when they worked together with S.H.I.E.L.D. Then her phone buzzes once, then begins to play a cheery little tune. It makes Steve thinks of the circus – at least until her expression goes sharp with the cool mask of the Black Widow.

He watches warily as she fishes it out of her pocket and answers with brisk competence. “Clint? What’s happening?”

Steve hears something about Maria. Natasha’s eyes flick up to him, and her mouth tightens. “We’ll be right there.”

–

“Helen hasn’t given you a clean bill of health.”

“You’re not fully recovered yet.”

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Fury intended.”

“I’m pretty damn _certain_ this isn’t what Fury intended!”

“Maria—”

Steve watches her head come up from cataloguing the equipment in the back of the Quinjet, feels a twinge of remorse for the concentrated attack, but ploughs on regardless. “If it’s an ex-SHIELD operative then Natasha or Barton can take it—”

She turns to look at him and the others who are standing throughout the Quinjet hold and on the ramp, variously arguing, watching, and listening. “No,” she says, calm and clear. “They can’t. They don’t know her and she won’t trust them. She knows me and she trusts me. This is one of the reasons why Fury contacted me, and yes, he intended for me to personally manage the retrieval.”

“But not alone,” Sam offers from the top of the ramp, his tone easy but his gaze intent. “And while _I_ appreciate your dedication to the job in the face of your health, Hill, how about you go easy on us and take someone with you? Just in case.”

Steve isn’t sure whether to thank God for Sam’s calming influence or to growl at his idea of a compromise, because whatever Maria is or isn’t doing, she’s still in recovery – sleeping for a good eight hours a day, and doing entirely too much for a woman who should be letting her body recover from the cancer it’s fighting. She’s in no condition to be running off after an operative who can’t look after himself, and certainly not in a hot extraction.

“All right.”

Steve thinks there might be steam coming out his ears. “All _right_?”

“All right, I’ll take one of you with me.” She says it as though it’s self-evident, and Steve has this sudden suspicion—

Barton voices it. “You were always going to take one of us.”

“I’m in recovery,” she says sharply. “That doesn’t make me stupid. And Rogers is rated for flight and extraction. He’ll do.”

_He’ll do?_ Steve is on the verge of protesting, but a movement from Sam catches his eye and his buddy shakes his head, ever so slightly.

“Natasha’s rated on flight and extraction by S.H.I.E.L.D standards,” Clint says. “So am I. And we’re less of a wildcard than Rogers. What else are you planning, Maria—?”

The question hangs in the air. Then the corners of Maria’s mouth tilt just enough to give her the sense of a smile.

“You’re going to have him spotted,” Natasha says, folding her arms. “Captain America in the heart of China, helping an intelligence operative escape—”

“Seriously?” Sam looks from Natasha to Maria. “That’s—”

“Going to put a cat among the pigeons,” Pepper says from the corner. “And then some. Maria, I’d like a word without the Greek Chorus.” Her voice is crisp and polite – the only woman who has ever had Tony Stark cornered and made him stay there.

One of the few people Maria trusts enough to listen to without argument.

She looks at Steve. “Prep for an extraction. We’re leaving 1900 hours for a midnight rendesvous. Nat, can you do something about his hair? Barton, run Quinjet pre-flight, please. Wilson—”

“ _Maria._ ” Pepper stalks down the ramp.

Maria hands Sam the tablet. “First aid, weapons, tech. Go through the lists, mark them off.” She then follows after Pepper with the closest thing to meekness that Steve’s ever seen in her. There’s a moment as they watch this, digest this, consider this.

Then Scott tucks his hands in his pockets. “You know, I’d ask why neither side called either of _them_ when you were recruiting the other week, but I guess the answer’s pretty obvious.”

Amusing as the by-play is, Steve takes Natasha by the shoulder and starts herding her off the Quinjet. What he can’t stop, he’s been given the grace to assist – _Thank you, Sam_ – and he’s going to seize it with both hands. “Let’s go do whatever you’re going to do with my hair.”

–

The compound is dark when Steve drops down on the top of the compound wall.

There are pressure sensors to tell when someone comes over the top. Steve sets them off quite deliberately. He’s here as a diversion because apparently Maria has more faith in this Xian Coy Manh’s ability to get out by himself than Steve does.

Another graduate of Madripoor? Steve didn’t ask. Maria’s new contacts just keep piling up, one after the other, and if it surprises him after the three years he’s known Maria, well, she’s never been exactly forthcoming about any part of her history – not to him.

As he sprints along the wall, his hoodie only half covering his face, Steve wonders how Pryor managed to live with the knowledge that there was a whole world that Maria inhabited which he could never touch. Maybe that’s why the other man can be so resigned about his relationship with Maria – he’s never had an insight into the woman she is; only the woman she allowed herself to be around him.

He leaps, grabs for the guttering next to the security camera bubble and uses it as a pivot to swing himself up and onto the roof of the compound. Once there, he reaches over the edge and destroys the camera with one swipe. Then he’s up and moving again, even as the shouts start down below.

It’s been a while since he went on a mission without the shield. He’s going to have to get used to that again; he doesn’t know if Tony took the shield back, but he suspects so. He hopes so – that Tony wasn’t so bitter that he just left it where Steve dropped it – but he doesn’t know.

_Your instinct is to reach for what is no longer there. If you do not learn differently, it will be your downfall._

If the little Japanese woman’s words seemed portentious then, they feel prophetic now. Steve focuses on the situation, on where he is, on what he’s doing, on his goal. He has to get to the end of what Maria said would pretty much be a steeplechase-come-obstacle course, and she’ll be there to catch him.

Well, pick him up anyway, having picked up the operative at another point several minutes earlier.

There are people shooting at him now, the cadences of their speech foreign, but the tone needing no explanation. Order, counterorder, disorder. They weren’t expecting a second intruder after the first was discovered, and they certainly don’t know where he came from. How they’ll react if and when they recognise him—

He hears the syllables then; the rendering of his title in the tonal language – he knows that much at least – and the tone of increased panic and alarm. A balcony gives him space, time, and a hiding spot – enough time to orient himself according to the building specs of the compound which the Operative got out before his meddling was discovered. Then he kicks in the door, plunges through a dimly-lit break area, and heads for the emergency exit stairwell.

One flight of stairs, and the pursuit has begun, their voices echoing in the stairwell as he sprints up three floors, then bursts out into the sticky night. The compound is fully lit at this point, searchlights skimming across the rooftops, searching for him. He flattens himself behind an air-conditioning unit as one passes by, the angle just a little too sharp to catch him, although it shines in through the open stairwell door and stays there a moment. Just when he thinks he’s going to have to break into the light, the spotlight moves away, swinging out to where a slender figure is sprinting along the distant wall, the merest slim shadow, made slimmer by the sharp illumination of the spotlight.

Then he skids, turns sharply, and leaps off into nothingness.

Steve’s breath hisses between his teeth as the operative vanishes. Maria’s got him; and the double click in his earpiece confirms it.

Exit, stage left.

The rooftop he’s on isn’t the tallest building, but it’s high enough, and he has to get down and away and out of sight—

He steps out from behind the air conditioning unit just as the door pushes open and the men who’d been coming up the stairs emerge, puffing with the effort. Steve steps into their space, disarms and disables them within moments, but their shouts draw the attention of the spotlight.

And of a man with a rocket launcher.

He glimpses the long, cylindrical barrel of the launcher even as he swings behind the stairwell door, bullets splintering the wood. He can just hear the patter of clicks that signals where Maria’s going to be, but nothing about whether she’s aware of the rocket launcher.

He signals with a swift and steady Morse through his earpiece, and only receives back the signal he got the first time.

Trust. He has to trust her and her understanding of the situation. She’s got it under control. Yes, she’s still in recovery, but that doesn’t make her stupid... All these thoughts flash through his head in a moment. Steve puts them aside. Returning an affirmative, he sprints for the edge of the roof. He’s sharply aware of the shouts and the gunfire behind him. And the empty space that’s all he can see ahead of him, not even a glimmer—

The RPG makes a distinct pop-whoosh behind him, and Steve skids to a halt at the edge of the roof as the missile soars overhead...

...and keeps going off into the night.

Steve changes direction heading along the short edge of the building, and then— _there—_ a flicker of something, a fine, glassy edge like the thinnest outline of ice—

He leaps for it at a full sprint, catches the edge of that icy outline and swings himself down and then back up like a gymnast on the parallel bars, blindly tuck-rolling up the closing ramp of the Quinjet while bullets ping off the surfaces around him—

“He’s in!”

There’s the slightest pressure as the Quinjet accelerates. Then the ramp seals up behind him and the inertial dampeners kick in.

Steve uncurls from the foetal position he assumed when he first heard the bullets. He looks up from the slim, heeled boots into a pointed, sharp-eyed distinctly _female_ face that studies him a moment before offering a hand up. “Captain Rogers, I presume?”

“Agent Manh.”

She hauls him up with surprising strength for such a small frame, and once he’s upright, he towers over her by a full foot. “When Maria said she bring assistance, I did not expect you.”

“Better strap up, we’ve got pursuit.” Maria calls from the cockpit.

“MIGs?”

“Yeah.” Maria’s tone is grim. “Updated ones.”

Steve strides to the cockpit, gripping the overhead hold. “Updated?”

“Better sensors,” Manh says, the click of her harness distinct above the whine of the engines. “Comprehensive pilot interface. Clever tracking. The Chinese are not stupid, just ideological.”

“Same could be said of America in some parts,” Maria observes sardonically. “Hold on.”

Steve slips into the co-pilot’s seat and just gets the harness fastened as Maria starts evasive maneuvres, weaving ducking, dodging, turning. The inertial dampeners help, but there’s nothing that can stop gravity so long as they’re on Earth or in Earth’s skies. She brakes once, hard, then veers off high and fast, leaving the MIGs labouring behind her. Then she tumble-rolls them down, hard down towards the ground, swooping and stooping like a bird of prey.

World War II flying tactics, Steve realises as he looks over at her. A different era, a different kind of flight – superiority defined more by movement and flying skill, less by technology and weapons capability. “Am I flying this, or are you?”

The smile that touches her lips is the feral one, bright and brilliant – the one that usually means he’s in for a long night of intense sex when they get back. Steve’s gut tightens, before he forces himself to relax. He’s not going to be dragged aside and fucked out of his mind. Not this time. Not when she’s got Pryor—

Steve drags his gaze away before he starts imaginging Pryor settling Maria’s edges after a mission like this. He doesn’t know the extent of the other man’s injury, but there’s nothing wrong with his hands or mouth—

He unclenches his hands from his lap and looks blindly out at the blue sky overhead. Not his business, not anymore.

“Okay,” Maria says, as though from a long way away. “I think that’s done it.” She turns, and although the bright, edged look is in her eyes when she looks at Steve, he has to remind himself that it’s not _for_ him. “I need a break. You’ll have to take the controls for a while.”

Steve looks at the hands that are gripping the yoke perhaps a little too tightly, and swallows down the words that are wound tight in his chest. But he only nods and unclips himself, then slideshimself into the pilot’s seat as she eases herself out.

“Set a heading for Hanoi,” she says. “Xian wants to be dropped there.”

“And the debriefing?”

“We’ll do it now.”

It turns out that the Chinese have their own supersoldier program; nothing as complete as Project Rebirth, or as extensive as the Red room, but a select cadre of operatives, many of them enhanced.

“Their loyalty to the Chinese state,” Manh says, going over some data she managed to acquire while in the facility. “Supposed to be. Although I think they more loyal to the project head – Loong Si Mun – Simeon Loong. Like your mad scientist, but also party politician.”

“Sounds like Strucker,” Steve observes from the cockpit. “Are they trying to make their own army?”

“Everyone is.” Manh sounds amused. “This part of the world has more reason than most. Independence without interference is the dream, but without military might to backup, what is the point?”

Maria makes a noise like a snort. “ _Power and the money, money and the power, minute after minute, hour after hour..._ Okay. Well, they know we’re onto them, the only question is how they’re going to respond.”

“And that I cannot help.” Manh’s voice lowers a little. “You came fast; Madripoor?” Apparently not needing a verbal affirmative, she makes a noise like a snort. “Be careful, Maria. Jessan has her own plans.”

“So everyone tells me. I’ve got it under control.”

“You sure?”

“Quite sure. Transfer this over, please?”

There’s a few moments of quiet, murmurs as the women presumably transfer data across a connection, their voices low. And Steve adjusts their heading to avoid flying through a high-traffic section of sky over a Chinese city. They aren’t on a timetable, and it’s probably best not to draw attention if they can avoid it. Even cloaked and with all telemetry rolling in, there’s always the unexpected.

Such as the woman who slips neatly into the co-pilot’s chair, small and slight and elfin as she clips the belt over her lap and tightens the strap.

“Maria says she will take a nap, so I come keep you company.”

Steve forces himself not to glance back into the hold and lowers his voice. “Is she okay?”

A swift and sharp smile. “She is taking a nap.”

Which means she’s most definitely not okay. Steve swallows the complaint he’s about to make. Manh wouldn’t be interested in that; and he’s not about to stir up old business.

“So,” Manh says, “I hear you making trouble in Europe – big, messy trouble.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” Steve looks across at the woman sitting there. It occurs to him that he’s never asked someone independent about the Accords before this – someone who isn’t involved with the Avengers, isn’t a superhero or someone who’d be affected by the Accords. An independent, separate view. Maybe once, he’d have asked Peggy—

He lets the ache have its moment, then puts it aside.

“What do you think of the Accords?”

She snorts. “Too little, too late.”

Something about the way she says it... “When wouldn’t have been too late?”

A shrug of thin shoulders. “Maybe ten minutes after Erskine make you.” Her gaze slants up at him. “You changed the game – big muscle man, big hero. Now they can a make big powerful soldier, make the wars go their way, why be diplomatic, why make nice talk and peace? Why bother?”

“Because—” Steve pauses. “Because fighting should be a last resort, not a first one.”

Manh gives a short laugh. “And how long do you negotiate with the Accords, Captain? How many days between the signing and your big fight in Berlin? Not many.”

“That’s different.” Irked, Steve continues. “We didn’t get any warning about the Accords in the first place. One day we’re dealing with the fallout from a terrorist attempt, the next we’re under sanctions if we so much as keep the peace. And all they wanted the Accords to do was put a leash on us, like we’re dogs to be let loose when they decide we can savage someone of their choice. I wasn’t going to put up with that. We’re not animals.”

“No. But we are a new class of people. Differently dangerous.” Manh shrugs, not seeming to realise that she’s outed herself to Steve – or else just not caring. “I do not know American laws, but there are rules in many parts of Asia; you are this type of person, or you have this kind of money, there are rules - Some are silly or petty, but all with reason, and all still the rule. You work around it or through it, as you need.”

“And when you can’t?”

“Then you break the rule with consequences.” Manh shrugs. “I am not an Avenger. My job is done quietly, out of public view. There are rules - spoken, unspoken, written, unwritten – when I break them, there are consequences.” Her sudden grin is impish. “At the least, Maria yells at me.”

Steve snorts. “You trust her.”

“As much as anyone.” Manh settles back in her seat. “She’s not always right – sometimes she very wrong. But she thinks of consequences, what happen next. It is her job, but also who she is.”

And that, Steve thinks, is a terrifyingly accurate description of Maria.

He doesn’t want to think about that now, so he asks a question about what work Manh is doing in Hanoi, and discovers that she has family there, that she’s Vietnamese in background, and that she didn’t originally meet Maria in Madripoor.

“Not everything in Asia related to the Hoans, you know,” she says sharply.

Steve apologises.

By the time they’ve discreetly dropped Manh off in one of Hanoi’s outer districts, the sky around them is starting to brighten with daylight.

Maria takes the co-pilot’s seat, saying nothing about taking the controls back, apparently content to let Steve pilot and sit staring out the front viewscreen like she’s seeing none of it. And no wonder; it’s been a long night.

Zoning out, he thinks, and swallows back the sharp comment he wants to make. Instead, he tilts his head towards the cabin. “We have forty minutes to Madripoor. You could go back and have a nap.”

“I’m fine.”

“Just thinking?”

“An army of supersoldiers takes a lot of thinking about. How successful is the process? How complete? What are they making them for? Who do they serve?”

“I served an ideal. Maybe they do, too.”

“And then the question is ‘which ideals’? You fought for a side in the war – so will they. But at least I can be reasonably sure that you’re going to see the value of saving all humanity, not just people you approve of, or with the right color skin, or with the right set of ideologies.”

“The right kind of people,” Steve murmurs.

“In the end, it’s always about the right kind of people.”

“So young and so cynical.”

“So old and so trusting.” Maria sighs as she settles into the co-pilot’s chair. “Nobody makes an army of supersoldiers without intending to use them on a battlefield. The only question is which battlefield and what for?”

Steve watches the horizon and considers something which he’s never asked before.

“Back when I was first considering what to do with myself – after New York – the Secretary of Defense came and asked for me to consider rejoining the US Armed Forces, as part of a ‘special Division’. What would S.H.I.E.L.D have done if I’d accepted?”

“Why do you assume S.H.I.E.L.D would have done something?”

He shrugs. “I can’t imagine Fury allowing a useful resource to slip out of his hands. He had Tony down as a contractor, and I don’t think Tony was exactly stable back then.”

“He’s not exactly stable now.” Maria glances over at him. “I can’t speak for what Fury would have done, but I’d probably have sent you to Peggy. And I’d have let her make up your mind for you.”

“Because I don’t know my own mind?”

“Because she’d have reminded you that the world is worth fighting for, not just the United States.” She looks at him. “Isn’t that what you objected to in the Accords? That someone else would get to define who was worth saving, and who should be left to die?”

He tilts his head in acknowledgement of her summary. “And I object to being treated like I’m a weapon they can’t leave lying around.”

“Even if you are?” Her mouth curves when he looks at her frowning. “Why do you think Bucky chose the ice, Steve? He at least recognised that he was dangerous.”

“Bucky was programmed. I’m not.”

“Then think about what he’s been doing these last two years – and why. Laying low, keeping his head down, avoiding the spotlight or anything that might draw the notice of the authorities. Even before he realised what was in him, he didn’t try to make contact with you or anyone else. He knew what he was and recognised it.”

“And you think I don’t?”

“I think you’re deliberately obtuse to the consequences – more because you can be than because you’re sticking your head in the sand. You’re a hero to the world by reputation and name, but you’re also a weapon, Steve – you, Bucky, Natasha, Tony, Wanda – all of you, plus those people they’re enhancing in the compound where we picked up Xian. The fact that you can think and reason and judge and act of your own accord? That only makes you more dangerous to the minds of Ross and his ilk. How can they guarantee that you’ll stay on their side, that you won’t change your mind the way you did with S.H.I.E.L.D?”

He thinks of Natasha, getting out of his way, and suddenly wonders. “You’ve never protested what I did to S.H.I.E.L.D. Was that because you agreed with me, or because you figured it was best to get out of the way?”

“Maybe a little of both.” Her mouth twists. “And I wasn’t about to let Hydra use S.H.I.E.L.D as a hat. But you can do what you like, Steve – you’re a hero. Nobody’s going to stand in your way.”

“You would.” He doesn’t mean to say that, certainly not so bluntly. “If you thought I was out of line. If you thought I was risking other people. You’d get in my way.”

Her snort is half-laugh, half-disbelief. “Actually, I’d send someone else to get in your way. I’d stay out of it.”

_Who would you have sent this time if you’d been hale and able to intervene in the Accords?_ The question hovers on his lips. He swallows it back. It’s a moot point. The world is what it is – what they’ve made of it. Now they have to live with it.

Steve frowns as a faint buzzing resonates through the Quinjet, just on the edge of his hearing. He glances at Maria, wondering if she’s heard it.

“What?”

“Was there a phone ringing?”

She frowns as she gets up and goes into the hold even as the ringing stops, and a moment later he hears the soft taps and clicks that indicates she’s checking her phone. A moment later, the phone begins ringing on silent again, and she answers it.

“Hey.”

Her voice has softened, and Steve’s gut curls at the warmth in it. Pryor, calling at...he checks the timepiece and frowns. 0610 Madripoor time? That’s pretty early, even for Maria. But then, it was always easiest to catch her in the early morning. Nights were usually working late, but mornings were another matter. Before the start of the day, before she had to wrangle superheroes, before she had to think about the protection of the world there was time for...other things.

_Don’t go there, Steve._

Steve fixes his gaze on the smudge of land that they’re swooping towards and tries to ignore the lilt in her voice. He can’t hear what’s she’s saying, but he doesn’t have to – not with the cadences of her voice as she speaks with Pryor.

Tenderness. Intimacy.

_I wasn’t ready for a relationship with anyone. I shouldn’t have gotten involved._

She laughs at something Pryor says, and Steve’s hands clench around the yoke of the Quinjet. He can’t remember if she ever laughed like that with him. Certainly not in public, where anyone might see them, sitting on his lap with her arm around his neck...

Madripoor air traffic control contacts them, and he gives their identification and their heading, and has his flight path confirmed. By the time he’s finished with air traffic control, Maria’s fallen silent in the cabin. Steve’s tempted to call back, but he’s not sure his voice will hold steady when she answers him with professional briskness.

They’re done. Her relationship with Pryor is none of his business. Steve’s made overtures to Sharon, even if he isn’t quite ready to step through that door just yet...

Steve flies them past the city, into the hills, and manoeuvres them onto the landing pad, setting them down with barely a bump. As the landing pad descends into the hangar, he powers down and climbs out of the pilot’s seat, a little worried. There’s been no noise from her at all since the call from Pryor.

But when he gets to the cabin, he finds she’s strapped herself into one of the seats for landing, head back against the cushioned rests, eyes closed, her hands loose in her lap. Sleeping, he thinks, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, seeing the looseness in her limbs. Whatever second wind took her through the flight from China to Hanoi is now exhausted, and by the understated illumination of the Quinjet hold and the hangar bay filtering through the overhead skylights, she looks...vulnerable. Not fragile – he can’t imagine her breaking, even under this stress – just at her lowest ebb.

_...barefoot on the mats, her head in her hands, shoulders heaving..._

And yet that wasn’t a breaking point either. She picked herself up then, dealt with him and the others, with their issues and their suspicions and their animosity and their uncertainty. Is _still_ dealing with them, Steve realises. All the resources she can collect, all the prices she has to pay, all the people she has to soothe and manage and look after, in ways that he and Natasha and Barton and Wanda and Sam and Scott can’t, and don’t have to, just so she can save the world.

_I think that will do nicely,_ says Peggy in his memories, cool and beautiful and strong as the shield, a woman picking herself up from her hurts and doing the duty required of her.

Steve swallows down the savage urge that rises in him. Instead, he raps his knuckles against the Quinjet hull, like a knock on the door, and watches her eyelids rise.

“We’re home.”

A flush springs into her cheeks but she only unstraps herself and retrieves her personal satchel. Steve gets his own duffel as the ramp lowers, and turns to find her looking around the Quinjet hold, as though to see what needs doing.

“I’ll see it gets maintenance.”

Maria glances at him, frowning a little – at his tone of voice? At his offer? Then she nods. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t tell her she’s welcome. Instead, he trails her down the ramp, their footsteps echoing off the concrete as they make their way over to the elevator. She looks at him twice, and he returns the gaze but doesn’t answer the questions in her eyes. He doesn’t have the words, and he thinks that, even if he did, he’d choke on them as they came out.

She calls Pepper to inform the other woman that they’re back. From the sound of it, Pepper’s still annoyed that Maria went after the operative. Steve can just hear her clipped and crisp tones on the call.

“ _Y_ _ou’re going to lie down for a few hours, aren’t you?_ ”

“Yes, Pepper.” Maria rolls her eyes at Steve, but when he doesn’t smile back she drops her gaze and sighs. “I’ll go directly to bed, do not pass office, do not collect workload for the day.”

“ _You do that._ _I’ll check in on you at 9am, and if I find you awake..._ ”

“I’m fine. I’ll get some rest, I promise.” She hangs up and sighs. “There go my plans for the day.”

“You _were_ up all night.”

“And I’m still in recovery?” Her mocking question goes unanswered as the doors open at the level of the living quarters. Maria steps out, then hesitates when she realises Steve isn’t following her out. She sticks her arm out to hold the doors. “Thanks for backing me up, Steve. I know you didn’t want me to go—”

“I understand why you had to.”

It’s all he can offer, and he hopes it’s enough. Maria looks like she wants to say something more, although her lips remain closed about whatever it is that she’s thinking. Instead, she hesitates again, then simply nods and walks off down the corridor. The elevator doors close behind her, shutting out the world, but closing Steve in, rather like the choices he’s left with, the consequences he has to live with.

And Steve stands in the waiting elevator until he’s sure that when he reaches for the control panel, he won’t press the button to open the doors again and follow her to her room. She’s set boundaries, and he doesn’t have the right to cross them, so he won’t.

After nearly a minute, he goes down to the gym.

Thirty minutes later, Sam leans in the doorway and folds his arms. “How’d the mission go?”

“We got the operative out. Debriefed. Set her down in Vietnam. Came home.”

If Sam’s disconcerted by the terse report, he doesn’t show it, simply answering. “Good to hear. What’s with the punching bag?”

Steve looks back at the surface of the bag he prefers the old-style canvas covers to the modern vinyl ones, an old preference, nothing special. There’s a slight warp in the weave, and he brushes at it with one knuckle as he thinks about what to tell Sam, how to say it. “She exhausted herself going out there and coming back.”

“But the mission needed doing.”

“And if it hadn’t?” He swallows hard. “She’s got no off switch – no self-preservation.”

Sam coughs. “I think some of us are just born without it.”

Steve’s mouth curves, but the humour is brief and bitter. “I’ve always had people who looked after me. She hasn’t.”

_I didn’t tell him; he tracked me down._

_You weren’t supposed to see that._

_If it helps, think of me as broken._

At least, not people who could look after her without jeopardising who she wanted to be.

“Well, she’s got people now.” Sam hesitates, and Steve can feel the hovering indecision on whether to ask or stay silent. But this is Sam and while he’s tactful, he’s not afraid to ask the hard questions. “You still love her, don’t you?”

Steve tries to laugh, but it sticks in his throat.

Yes, he still loves Maria.

In spite of her abandonment, in spite of her silence and rejection, in spite of Sharon Carter and all the opportunities she presents, Steve Rogers is still in love with Maria Hill.

So long as she was out of his orbit, he could pretend it didn’t matter, that he was done with a woman who was through with him. Coming to Madripoor has stripped his illusions away – or maybe it was the mission that did it, seeing exactly what Maria will do without a team, without support staff, without backup, simply because it needs to be done and she’s in place to do it.

_My loyalty is to_ _Earth_ _, Steve. And I will put everything on the line for it._

And who’s there to back her up?

Fury, maybe? Except he’s still sending her out into the field when she’s not back to full health. Pepper was, when it counted, but even Pepper can’t rein Maria in when she’s intent on executing the mision. And now that the Avengers know about her cancer, they’re not going to let her wear herself out. And yet...

Nathan Pryor can’t watch her back – he’s not physically capable of it, even if he had the clearance. But he can give Maria laughter, and normality, and an existence outside world security – things which Maria seems to need in a relationship, and which Steve can’t offer her, if she even wanted him.

She doesn’t want him.

Consequences and choices.

So be it. He’ll offer the only thing she’ll take from him; his body and soul and heart rejected, but his work and his service acceptable. He’ll fight the fights she needs him to take on, and live with the stab of knowing that she chose someone else.

“Love,” he says to Sam when the silence has stretched uncomfortably long, “isn’t just about what they can give you; it’s about what you can offer them.”

“Always has been.” A tilt of the head, dark eyes steady and concerned. “You gonna be okay?”

Steve looks back at the punching bag and exhales. “Yes.”


	7. dance me to the end of love

Maria thinks that, as the person whose scans came back clear, she should have gotten a say in how they were going to celebrate.

A number of people – most notably Pepper, Natasha, and Sam – disagreed.

In the end, while Maria wouldn’t have _chosen_ to go out to dinner before sending the rest of the night out at an old-fashioned dancing club that’s just opened in one of Madripoor’s newest high-rises, she can’t say that it’s not...nice to be out for a change.

As she sits back against the cushions of the wall-seat, she feels a small pang of guilt that she didn’t ask Nate to come along tonight. It’s less the awkwardness of asking him to a dance club, and more the fact that she’s still not entirely comfortable introducing him to the Avengers. It wasn’t an issue back when her life at S.H.I.E.L.D was a separate thing entirely to whatever socialising she did outside.

Now? Now it’s complicated.

Out on the floor, Sam and Pepper are dancing, with sleek, co-ordinated moves that indicate one or both have had dancing lessons at some point and remember the lessons well. It’s not a surprise to Maria. Sam is a man who’s very aware of his body and what it can and can’t do. No surprise considering his work with Project Falcon, although it would have transmuted to a consciousness of his humanity while running alongside Steve and working with the Avengers. And Pepper would have learned dancing at the same time as she learned the politics of working with Tony – the intricate consciousness of oneself, one’s partner, and how to make the two work as one unit.

They seem to be enjoying themselves – easy expressions on their faces, the occasional bright grin from Sam, and a laugh from Pepper. That’s the important part.

Clint and Wanda are more serious, although still smiling as he talks her through the movements. From what Maria can see, he’s trying to persuade her to let him take the lead. Giving way isn’t an easy thing for a headstrong young woman – as Maria well knows – but it looks like Wanda is working at it.

Idly, Maria wonders what Pietro Maximoff was like. She’s only seen the clips and the notes on him from the Avengers files, shorn of personality, with little more than the videos of him, the mission reports from the Avengers, and Wanda’s personal recollections. Would he have been a steadying influence on his sister, or would she have had to anchor him, the weight of her responsibility to them both grounding her both personally and professionally?

They'll never know.

Her gaze drifts through the dancing couples to the last pair of their party who’s on the floor. It’s pretty obvious that Steve’s never danced like this before. Natasha’s been keeping it very simple, a lot of prompting if the expression on her face was any indication, and stepping on his toe once when she caught him not paying attention.

Maria would have found it funnier if the distraction hadn’t been her – Steve catching sight of her watching them over Natasha’ shoulder and missing a step. Then he paid better attention.

After falling asleep at the end of the extraction mission in China three weeks ago, Maria figured Steve would be at the forefront of the people trying to make her take it easy. Either that, or she imagined he would retreat, leaving her to the care of the others.

Instead, he’s been...helpful. Not interrupting her work, but assisting in it. Doing data analysis, bringing her food, coming in to chat just when she needs a break. It’s much the same thing that he did during Xian’s extraction, only more professionally.

It’s a little strange. Like being friends without ever having shared a bed. And Maria’s finding she likes it...sort of. She still finds him watching her sometimes, and it makes her heart thud a little harder. But he doesn’t push her boundaries, doesn’t say why he’s staring at her, just smiles, careful and a little distant, and keeps on with whatever he’s doing.

Watching him now, she notes that he’s getting better at leading and turning, even in the space of two dances, and the second one hasn’t even finished...

Lang slides into the chair beside her, back from the restrooms. “Wow. We got deserted.”

“Sam insisted someone stand up with him, and cozened Pepper into it. And then Natasha chivvied Clint into taking Wanda out.”

“And dragged Cap out herself.” Lang looks sideways at her, with a half-tilted smile, “Did Potts and Romanoff actually ask you what you wanted to do tonight to celebrate?”

Maria tilts her head at him. “What do you think?”

He sprawls back in the chair, stretching out his legs and folding his hands over the vest of the three-piece suit that Sam apparently chivvied the guys into wearing tonight. “I’m thinking that if we’re here, and everyone else is dancing, we should try it too. That is, if you want to. And if you’re willing to put up with a partner who can’t dance for shit.”

She likes his frankness. “That would make two of us.”

Lang’s smile is the kind that would usually presage some kind of mischief, and Maria can appreciate the down-to-earth charm of it as he holds out one hand to her. “Hey, I’m game if your toes are.”

They’re going to make idiots of themselves, Maria knows, but somehow the prospect of looking like an idiot with Lang isn’t as terrible as it used to be. So she puts her hand in his and lets him lead her out to a dark corner of the dance floor where they’ll be less noticeable. Not that this will be too difficult, not with Sam and Pepper doing dips and turns, and Natasha and Steve countering with some pretty slick moves of their own.

Lang snorts as Steve drops Natasha into an effortless dip. “I thought Rogers hadn’t done this before.”

“I don’t think he has.” Maria doesn’t let her gaze linger on the way he and Natasha move together, even if it is a thing of beauty. Nothing is happening between them, and even if it was, it’s none of her business – not anymore.

“Sometimes I think ‘Damn, I gotta get me some of that serum.’ And then I remember all the stories of what happened to the other guys who took it and I think, ‘Oh, hell no.’”

“Sensible response.”

“Not what I’m known for, I guess.” Lang looks back at her. “You know, you’re not as scary as they make you out to be.”

“Clearly I’m backsliding. Guess I’ve lost my taste for eating cons and criminals for breakfast.”

“Just supersoldiers? Sorry,” he says with a wince. “That was really out of line.”

“Not just out of line but in the next county over.” But, somewhat to her surprise, Maria finds she’s not offended. Lang can be tactless and occasionally tacky, but he’s not malicious, the way plenty of other people would have been – in S.H.I.E.L.D, and in the Avengers facility. “You’re lucky I have my ‘nice face’ on tonight.”

“I’m gonna consider myself lucky you didn’t plant your knee in my balls and twist my arm behind my back so I’m kissing floor.”

“I still can.”

“I’ll just shut up and dance.”

Maria forces herself to relax and move with Scott and the music. It goes against the grain to stand tamely in a man’s arms and let herself be led, but Scott doesn’t seem to notice her tension, keeping up an easy stream of casual conversation that she can reply to without having to think too hard, or answer too truthfully.

When Sam and Natasha swirl up, Maria accepts the partner swap, although she’s less gracious about the way Sam leads her into the middle of the dance floor .

“You’re fine,” he says when she protests. “In all senses of the word.”

Maria rolls her eyes. “You don’t need to flirt with me, Wilson.”

“Maybe I want to?” He turns them with a confidence in Maria’s dancing skills which she doesn’t share. Still, they manage to slip between another set of dancers without crashing into them. “You’ve just been given a clear slate – a new lease of life, for at least the next year. That’s why we dragged you out here.”

“To flirt?”

“To relax. To get out somewhere that isn’t the facility – somewhere you can’t reach for your tablet and see what new crisis in world security needs you now. To be the other Maria Hill – the one that likes a drink and a game and owns some pretty amazing heels.”

He waggles his brows, and she manages to hold back a smile, even as she points out, “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are. And, as I’ve already said, looking good.”

“I bet you tell all the ladies that.”

“Absolutely.” He tilts his head down, as though imparting a secret. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

Laughter huffs in her chest, because Sam’s incorrigible, and even if the flirting isn't serious – she’s not interested in Sam any more than he is in her – it lifts her spirits. She’ll never have Natasha’s beauty or Pepper’s elegance, but it’s nice to be appreciated where she’s at, even by a friend.

Sam dances them neatly through the crowds, avoiding both the other dancers as well as topics of conversation that go anywhere near world security. Considering how much of their interaction surrounds the matters of work, Maria considers the second even more of an art than the first – and the first is pretty impressive given that she has no rhythm at all.

Then he missteps – just a moment out of beat – and Maria stumbles, just as she was settling into the rhythm of things.

The hand that cups her elbow is firm enough to hold her up, even if Sam wasn’t already holding her.

“If you can’t keep her on her feet, maybe you shouldn’t be dancing with her,” Steve says from behind Maria.

“Says the guy who said he was a beginner an hour ago.”

“I learn fast.” Steve looks at her. “May I cut in?”

She wants to say yes. She wants to say no.

“One dance, Maria.” In the low lighting of the club, his expression looks implacable, like this is a battlefield he’s willing to step onto for nothing more than the opportunity. “That’s all I’m asking.”

There’s not a graceful way to say no. Not that it would matter if she could get her mouth around the single syllable of refusal. As it is, she desperately wants to say ‘no’, but she’s more than a little terrified that it might come out as ‘okay’.

_One dance._

Maria looks over at Sam and realises he hasn’t moved away. He’s willing to wait for her decision and to shoulder Steve out if she doesn’t want to dance with him. His loyalty brings a lump to her throat - not just loyalty to Steve, but also to her – backing her up in whatever decision she makes. The knowledge that she won’t be left high and dry is what gives her the strength to decide what she’s going to do. When he lifts an eyebrow at her, asking a silent question, she nods at him and drops her hands.

Sam gives her a little smile and steps back and away, ceding his place to Steve just as the last song ends, although the violin plays on in a solo that sounds almost like a classical aria from a concerto.

Steve lifts his hand up under hers as it drops, an effortless catch, and his eyes don’t move from her face as he steps in and curves his arm around her back, as she rests her hand on his shoulder and makes herself stand straight and unflinching, when what she wants is to lean into the heat and strength of him and feel him press back against her.

The piano and double bass come in with a gently swinging beat, and Steve starts them off with a little wandering step in time with the pace of the music. Nothing fancy, just a dance.

Except it’s the closest they’ve been physically in close to a year, and in spite of the length of time, Maria's body has not apparently forgotten the way he feels against her. Tensile strength, powerful control, the comfortable lean into her space, the warm and musky scent...

“We never danced like this before,” he says, as the singer launches into the soft, slow croon of an old song...

_Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin..._

“Did you want to?” Maria regrets the words almost as soon as they're out of her mouth, because the last thing she needs to remind either him or herself of what's past. They've done the post-mortem, it's time to bury this and move on. “Never mind. It’s...it’s too late for that.”

Steve looks away for a moment, his mouth tightening. “I never thought of it before. We never—I never thought that you might—That you might want to...”

Maria shrugs a little. “I didn't.” Not at the time. And if he'd suggested it back then, before she broke up with him... She wouldn't have wanted to – too much contrast between who she was, what she was, and what she could have, could be.

_Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in..._

Even now, dancing in his arms, Maria can feel the clawing terror of this public intimacy. It's not safe to be with him and it never will be. And she's the wrong kind of woman for him – too blunt, too uncompromising. It's not in her nature to bend, and while Steve was willing to give way to her, it would have been only a matter of time before he resented being with a woman who had to keep parts of herself separate, who had to be the job. Of course, he had to be the job, too, but it's always different for a man.

_Lift me like an olive branch, and be my homeward dove..._

Steve is watching her, even as his hand adjusts on her back, an intimate splay of fingers that somehow draws them together, even if she maintains the space between them with absolute care. Her pulse is thudding, a slow and steady tattoo in her bloodstream. And when she looks up into his eyes...

Her short sharp breath brushes her breasts against his chest – the slightest caress that thrums through her body like a buzz, like a circuit’s just closed and a current slides through it.

“Steve...” Even as she bites it off, she realises the protest sounds more like a plea. “Don’t.”

His mouth tightens a little before he says, simply, “We’re just dancing.”

_Dance me to the end of love..._

They are, and they aren’t, and they both know it.

Maria nearly steps back and walks away. She shouldn’t stay here, even if it is ‘only a dance’. It’s the first time she’s stood in the curve of his arms with others looking on – and it’s the last. She can’t afford him and she never could, she just loved on borrowed time.

She’s still loving on borrowed time.

_Thanks for backing me up. I know you didn’t want me to go—_

_I understand why you had to._

In the fifteen months during which she organised Avengers Operations, Maria ran a couple of her own missions on the QT. Dealing with people who were undercover, in places where she couldn’t rely on an operative, or had to deal with things that were delicate and which she didn’t trust to anyone else. She never took Steve on those missions, unable to risk that much of her autonomy to let him into her side of the work they both did. Not until China had he seen what she did in between managing the Avengers, in between the work Pepper asked of her for Stark Industries.

Maybe it was just as well.

He’d wanted to carry her from the Quinjet to the elevator after the China mission. She’d seen the way he tucked his hands into his pockets, had known he was restraining himself as he strolled behind her. He’d held back, been the perfect, respectful gentleman. But she had the feeling that if she'd issued an invitation as she walked away that morning, he would have swept her up in a moment, Sharon or no Sharon.

She would have let him.

She still would.

Temptation looms, sweet as a kiss, and she sways as they make a little half-turn. His arm curves in, pulling her close up against him as another couple move past. When the other couple have moved on by, however, he doesn’t let her step back away.

“Steve...”

His exhalation of breath brushes her temple. “Just relax, Maria.”

 _I can’t_. The words tremble on her lips. She quivers with the tension of holding everything in – her cancer, her responsibilities, her concerns.

Then Steve flattens his hand against the small of her back, drawing her right up against him, close as lovers.

Maria allows herself to let go. It’s only for a few minutes, a small concession, and it’s been a long time since someone wanted to touch her, hold her like this. She’s never been one for much physical contact, and neither Pepper nor Natasha are naturally tactile women – like Maria, they’re too aware of the perceptions if they soften themselves. So this is...nice. Different. Intimate.

The warmth of him seeps through his shirt and jacket under the hand she rests on his shoulders. The scent of him rises in her nostrils as the singer croons on about witnesses and Babylon and limits of. And when she looks up, the closeness of his face to hers heats her skin and makes her turn her face to the side, even as his jaw brushes her cheek.

_Dance me to the end of love..._

More than anything else, this moment highlights why they never danced like this. Too close for comfort, too sensuous for words, and the painful awareness that this is a moment out of reality: the contrast between who she is now and who she’ll have to be in the morning too stark to be ignored.

She tenses as he changes the angle of his head, brushing his cheek against her cheekbone like a caress, like a nuzzle. And she wants to turn her face up and meet his mouth with hers but...

She can’t. She doesn’t dare.

He no longer carries the shield, but he’s still a hero, made and trained to fight. And she’s no longer part of S.H.I.E.L.D or the Avengers, but she’s still the person who has to keep everything in line. Now that she’s starting to get a little more of her strength back, she’ll be taking on more duties – and moving on, out of the immediate orbit of the Avengers.

Leaving him behind.

Steve Rogers is not for her and never has been, whatever she let herself believe for a while. And she walked away once before because she thought she had to be strong, and someday soon she’ll have to walk away again. She’ll have to be strong. And she will be, because she has to be.

They’ve done the post-mortem. They’ve worked out how they’re going to operate together without sex in the way.

This is simply goodbye.

So she dances with Steve to the end of the song, gathered in, and quietly burning to the end of love. And when the song ends in a flourish and a smattering of applause, his hand brushes her nape, trailing through the tips of her short pixie-cut in what they both know is an invitation – a request to be let in.

“Maria...”

She turns her head from his touch, careful not to angle her face in any way that might be an invitation. His gaze upon her is a shadowed furnace, burning yet banked. “Thank you for the dance.”

His fingernails scrape against her nape, the lightest brush, nerves skittering across her senses. Then he nods, takes her hand, and leads her off the dancing floor to where the others are sitting.

They don’t talk for the rest of the night, but as they’re getting ready to leave, she looks up to find him watching her, quiet and unsmiling. She looks back, half in curiosity, half in challenge, and then his mouth quirks a little in a lopsided smile which fades as they start standing and organising the trip home.

\--

When Nate’s chopsticks chink as he lays them down on the glazed ceramic block, Maria realises she’s only gotten halfway through her bowl of rice.

“You’ve been picking at that for the last ten minutes,” he says mildly. “You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

She shakes her head, smiling. “Not really hungry.”

His expression is disbelieving, and a little disappointed, and Maria winces. She’s actually been thinking about where she’s headed after this – right now, there are a number of options on her plate. The thing is that none of her plans actually include Nate in them.

And she’s sitting here at lunch, while he’s thinking that they’re in a relationship, when the truth is...

Well, she doesn’t know what the truth is. There are lots of complicated layers around her feelings, and that’s not even counting the things that she doesn’t let herself think about because if she gave in to them, then they’d never trust her to do the job, and...

Nate sighs, folds his napkin and lays it neatly by his chopsticks. “I think we need to talk, Maria.”

“Never a good sign,” she murmurs. “All right, then. What—?”

She breaks off as a ripple stirs through the restaurant. And her breath gusts out in a rush of disbelief as Tony saunters up to her table, lifting a finger to signal the waiters, or maybe acknowledge someone else he recognises in the restaurant. With Tony, it’s hard to tell.

“Hello Maria.”

“Tony.”

Tony spreads his hands out, his grey suit jacket edges parting. “That’s it? Not even a ‘hi’? I’m disappointed.”

Maria knows this song-and-dance. It’s the one he uses when he’s trying to cover his nervousness. And no, Tony Stark is not usually nervous, but most of the instances tended to be regarding Pepper and his relationship with her.

Does he know Pepper is in Madripoor?

No, she thinks. If he did, he would have gone to see her first, and Maria would have a message from Pepper on her phone giving her advance warning. So Pepper isn’t a part of this, and Tony’s come to see her.

There’s only one reason that Tony would come and see her – well, two. But he’d struggle to be polite if he thought she was hiding Pepper, or thought he could get to Pepper through her. So it’s to do with the Avengers...

“What do you want, Tony?”

“Well, for starters, I could do with an introduction.” A waiter comes up with a chair and Tony turns it around and sits on it.

“You’re not eating lunch with us.”

“Isn’t that an insult in some cultures?”

“It’s not in this one.” But she already knows she’s not going to get rid of him until they’ve had the discussion he wants to have. And, sure, her heart is beating a little faster at the thought of what she suspects he’s going to offer her, but she’s at lunch with someone who isn’t even associated with international intelligence. There are lines drawn, and...well, she supposes she should know better than to hope that Tony might observe them.

Maria sits back in her chair and sighs. “Nate, Tony Stark. Tony, Nathan Pryor. ”

Tony holds out a hand to Nate. “Pryor.”

“Stark.” Nate shakes with his usual equanimity. “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but you’re interrupting my lunch with Maria.”

Tony turns to her. “Are all your boyfriends destined to dislike me?”

“No, but it does add to the attraction.”

“That figures.” Tony looks back at Nate. “Sorry, I just need a few minutes. You can stay if you like.”

“Maria?”

She appreciates him asking. “Stay.”

“I won’t draw the obvious conclusion, because...Maria’s going to kill me. Okay.” He scowls at her, and Maria forces herself to relax as he says, “I spoke with Helen. Why didn’t you tell me you had cancer?”

“Perhaps because it wasn’t your business?”

His eyes narrow. “And how did Rogers take that when you told him? I’m presuming you didn’t tell him since he managed to get himself all wound up over Barnes. Although if you did, then it certainly explains a few things.”

Maria’s mouth pinches at the mention of Steve. Bad enough to be discussing work out in public, worse to be discussing her former relationship with Steve. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“But you told Pepper. And Helen. And probably Romanoff.”

“She didn’t know either.”

Tony makes a noise like a snort. “You know, I thought I was good at pushing people away, but I’m starting to think that you take the prize.”

“I try not to advertise it.”

“Well, you did a damned good job. Didn’t she?”

His appeal to Nate is met with a lifted eyebrow and a simple, “Leave me out of this, please, Stark.”

“I think I like this guy.” Tony turns back to her. “Look, like I said, I know about pushing people away. It’s...Well, I know where it ends. It kind of doesn’t, until...you just give up and stop trying to do it alone.”

She’s tempted to ask if this is his come-to-Jesus moment. “Tony, what’s this about?”

He drops his gaze, just for a moment. “I want you to come back to New York. Bring your boyfriend if you like – I’m presuming that he’s—”

“ _Tony_.”

“Look, I know I’m not the easiest employer in the world, but people I can trust are...kind of thin on the ground after the whole Accords business. And Rhodey misses you.”

The addition at the end, gives her something to concentrate on other than the sudden rush of something very like adrenaline.

“How is Rhodey?”

“Well, he’s learning to walk with the exoskeleton. It’s...going okay. Slow. He says it’s painful, but I think he’s just making it up.” He rubs one finger against the side of his goatee. “I’m surprised you haven’t bumped into him at U-Gin Bio, he’s been there so often. And I think he’s been texting Pepper on the side, although he won’t admit to it. But he could do with a visit from you. Or, you know, you could come back and work with the Avengers again.”

“Maybe I want out of world security.”

“Sure you do. And maybe you’re not actually Maria Hill.” Tony shrugs. “Look, there’s a position going, and you’re my top candidate. You’d be doing pretty much what you were doing before you up and vanished, and what you’ve probably been doing since then without actually telling anyone.”

Tony’s more accurate than he knows, but then nobody accused him of bring stupid – just a little self-involved, perhaps.

“You brought a teenager into a war, Tony.”

“And that’s exactly why I need you to come back. Plus,” he adds, “I don’t doubt you know exactly where Pepper is. And Rogers. And probably Barnes and the rest of them. But I’m not asking and you’re not telling, because I want you to think about this. The Avengers need you. _I_ need you.”

“I’m not your girl Friday, Tony.”

He snorts. “Like I’m expecting you to be. Look, just think about it, okay? You know where to find me.”

He stands up, grabbing the chair back and waving away the waiter who comes to take it from him. “I’ll put it away.”

A little seed of guilt niggles at her as he turns away. “Tony.”

“Oh, you’ve already made a decision?”

“Pepper’s fine. If you were wondering.”

The look in his eyes is suddenly hollow, the charming playboy that he presents to the world showing itself for the façade that it is. It’s only a moment – Tony’s good at hiding himself behind the layers – but it’s enough. “Will you tell her—?” He reins himself in with some effort.

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

Maria doesn’t add anything else, just watches him cross the restaurant to put the chair back with the others, waving away the waiters who try to take it from him. Then she watches him cross over to the register and pull out his card – and realises he’s paying for their lunch.

Typical Stark.

Nate’s wheelchair creaks as he leans back in it. “So that’s Tony Stark.”

“The Great And Powerful.” She looks at Nate, wincing. “I’m sorry about that. He’s...”

“Arrogant? Overwhelming? Surprisingly vulnerable?” His mouth curves, and something about the way he looks at her makes Maria think, _Uh oh_. He doesn’t disappoint her, either. “You know, I figured the other one for a bigger threat; I didn’t see Stark coming.”

“Threat?”

“Of taking you away.”

“I haven’t said I’m taking the job.”

“Is there any doubt?”

“Nate...”

He sighs. “Look, I think we both know we’re done, Maria. And no, I know it’s not the wheelchair and it’s not him – either of them,” he corrects, with a rueful smile. “But I’ve been reaching for something that ended before everything spun out of control, and you’ve been trying not to let me down. And you have your work responsibilities, and...I don’t think I’m cut out to taking second place all the time. Especially now I know what you do, and how important it is to you. And to them, apparently.”

Maria lets out a long breath. “I’m sorry.”

“That makes two of us.” Nate looks at her for a long, silent moment. It’s not unlike the look Steve gave her the other night at the club – very discomforting. Then he smiles. “Friends?”

“Yes.” Then she tilts her head. “So _you’re_ friend-zoning _me_?”

“At least on paper.” Nate shrugs, and indicates the rest of the food on the table. “Are you going to box it up?”

She gets it boxed, and when Nate asks for the bill, is confirmed in her premise that Stark paid for their meal. In fact, he paid for the meals of the entire restaurant.

Nate waits until they’re at the elevator to comment. “You sure know some interesting people these days, Maria.”

“It’s a hazard of the job.”

He looks up at her, the corners of his mouth tilting. “You know, I won’t guarantee I won’t use his picture as a dartboard.”

“Which one?” Maria asks unthinking, then grimaces.

But Nate shrugs and grins. “Both, probably.”

In the lobby of the building, she pauses by the wheelchair and bends down, brushing her lips over his cheek and feeling him turn his head to do the same to her. Normality, sanity, mundaneity – all the things she thought she wanted as a haven once, and then realised she couldn’t have, not if the price was going to be the world.

She gets one life; she’s going to live it. And if she has regrets, well, regrets are the price of a well-lived life.

“Call me every now and then,” he says as he wheels away. “When you feel like a dose of the ordinary.”

Maria watches him go.

Is it wrong to feel like she’s free again? Is it proof that he made the right choice for both of them? Or is it just the prospect of going back to work – being back in a job that matters?

Maria doesn’t know.

What she does know is that, as she heads back up to the facility, the next few hours are going to be among the most difficult she’s faced in a long time.

Fighting cancer is one thing; fighting the Avengers is another.

–

When Pepper leans her shoulder against the doorframe, Maria knows the gig is up. The news would have featured Tony’s appearance in Madripoor, and no doubt the main reason it’s Pepper here and not any of the others is because Pepper has the right of first salvo at both her _and_ Tony.

“When were you going to tell me you saw Tony?”

“When you came to hunt me down and make me tell the full story.”

Pepper sits down in the visitor’s chair and brushes off an imaginary speck of dust from her trousers. “Consider yourself targeted.”

Maria exhales slowly. “He wants me to go back and work for the Avengers Initiative again.”

“Back to operations oversight and management?”

“Yes.” On the way home, her email pinged, and she discovered he’d sent her a document, detailing the role and what was involved. It was...very formal and legal and proper. “I’ve looked at the job description - oh yes, there’s a job description this time. It looks like the Senate Committee for Management of Enhanced Persons is getting down and dictatorial.”

“After Berlin? I’m not surprised.” Pepper tilts her head. “Are you going to be okay with that?”

“No.” Maria smiled very thinly. “But if I’m taking this job I’ll stretch what I have to and snap it if it becomes necessary.”

Pepper smiles. “Do you know if Thunderbolt Ross knows that Tony asked you?”

“Haven’t a clue, but I doubt it.” General Ross had never much liked her – an uppity woman, far too sharp and uncompromising, and, of course, unwilling to bend for him. She’d never quite appreciated how Fury had always backed her up until she was working with the Avengers after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D and had to deal with Ross directly.

“You know,” Pepper says, “this probably isn’t something you should be deciding alone.”

Maria narrowed her eyes, annoyed. “It’s my life.”

“Yes. And we’re rather proprietary about it, if you haven’t noticed.” Pepper quirks a smile, managing to make if both sharp and soothing. “At the least, they deserve to know you’re going back in, and why.”

“Someone has to do the job,” Maria observes, her chest tight and a little hot. “And who else knows it like I do?”

“They survived while you were getting treatment. More or less.”

“A little bit less than more. And Steve stayed on top of things better than Tony will. Rhodey could, but he’s still healing – are you in contact—?” Pepper’s smile confirmed Tony’s suspicions. “Well, he’s not capable of attending to his rehabilitation _and_ the Avengers. And _you_ could do it...”

“But I don’t want to be an Avenger. I’m already CEO of Stark Industries”

“But if the world needs you to be...”

“If the world needs _me_ to be an Avenger, then it’s already too late for the world. No,” Pepper adds when Maria opens her mouth, “Don’t start down there again. Give me more reasons.”

“Am I answering to you?”

“No. But you might as well practise them since the others will want to know – and will pick it apart with a lot more intensity than I will.”

Maria flattens her hands out on the table, scowling down at the manicure that was perfect three days ago when they went to the club and is now already chipped along the edges. The others won’t be happy – she’s not supposed to go back in. But her life is her life and she’s going to do what she sees as right.

When she slants a glance up at Pepper, her friend is watching her, infinitely patient.

“Do _you_ understand why?”

It takes Pepper a moment to respond. “What would you have done when you left here? After you’d set up the Avengers?”

“Made contact with...various people. Scoped out the state of world security. Seen what other fail-safes could be developed.”

“Because it needs to be done. And because you enjoy doing it, even after cancer.”

“I’ll look after myself.”

“Yes,” Pepper says with firm and gracious certainty, “you will.”

Maria laughs and pulls up the newest message in her inbox – from Akela Amador, an inquiry about local unrest in Burma and the people who are inciting it – possibly deliberately. It’s all of a piece when it comes to world security – a small fire now could so easily blow up in their face. “Yes, mom.”

“Maria.” She looks up and finds Pepper regarding her with a fierce and solemn expression. “I think you need Tony, just as Tony needs you. You’re a lot alike you know – one reason both of you want boundaries so badly is because you know what you’d become without them.” Pepper smiles faintly. “I know that Tony wanting boundaries sounds ridiculous. but he never had anyone who cared enough to impose them on him – and so he did what he pleased, but it was just a way of life, not something he truly wanted. And you had the boundaries imposed on you by your superiors, but that wasn’t care either.”

“So we’re coming at the same place from different ends of the spectrum?”

“Pretty much, although you’re more...contained than Tony.” Pepper tilts her head. “I’ll feel better if you’re there keeping an eye on him.”

“Ah, so my real use comes out.” She stares down at her nails and begins chipping away at the enamel with her thumb. “Are you going to back me up on this, then?”

“I’d back you up anyway.” A little startled by the statement, Maria looks up. Pepper’s smile is gracious and amused – the one that that far too many powerful men overlooked because it came from a beautiful woman, not recognising the steel trap mind behind it. “I just think the others have the right to be told before you leave, and to hear your reasons for why you’re going back.”

“And to question it?”

“They’ll do that anyway.” Pepper’s pragmatic about it. “Frankly, Maria, you’re better off leading the conversation than trying to catch up, and you know it.”

Maria knows it, she just doesn’t _like_ it. But Pepper is right in this instance: there’ll be no getting out of it with the others.

“After dinner,” she promises.

Only it turns out that dinner is going to be a fancy sit-down affair orchestrated by Sam and (somewhat surprisingly) Natasha – pot roast, potato bake, steamed greens...

The others seem to be in a good mood, at least, which means Maria doesn’t have to make conversation, she can just roll with the banter between the others. And maybe it’s the comfort-food, maybe it’s just that she’s seeing them with the eyes of someone suddenly aware of how temporary this is, but it feels almost like the heyday of her work with the Avengers via Stark Industries: accepted, befriended, included...

She grins with the others as Sam pokes a particularly ruthless hole in Scott’s recounting of a long-ago exploit, and glances up to find Steve watching her across the table. He doesn’t look away, and Maria doesn’t drop her gaze, challenging whatever it is he’s staring at her for. Only they can’t do it forever – they’re at a table with six other people, for God’s sake, all of whom know of their history, and sooner or later one of them is going to make a comment—

“So, Maria,” Clint drawls from down the end of the table. “How about you tell us what Stark came to tell you this afternoon?”

“And spoil dessert?”

Clint shrugs as he lifts his beer to his mouth. “Maybe we’ll use dessert to wash the bad taste out of our mouths.”

“You’re presuming it’s bad.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Depends,” Maria says, with a quick glance at Pepper. “He asked me to go back and work for the Avengers again.”

“As compared to working with the Avengers _now_?” Natasha inquires.

“His iteration of it.”

“Well, nobody ever accused him of lacking balls,” Clint muttered. “And you said?”

“She’s going to say ‘no’.” Natasha folds her hands neatly on the tablecloth and her eyes are hard as sapphires. “Because the first time she does something ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross doesn’t like, he’ll hang her out to dry.”

“And this is different to all the other times...?”

“All the other times, you had Fury backing you up. Or the Avengers.”

Maria supposes she should have expected Clint and Natasha to be the most vocal ones about this. They’ve known her the longest, they’ve seen what happens when US politics comes up against world security, and they’ve dealt with the politics, albeit with first the stamp of ‘special agents under Nick Fury’s S.H.I.E.L.D’ and then with the stamp of ‘Avengers’. Maria is well aware that she’ll have neither when dealing with Thunderbolt Ross, but she can’t hide behind their skirts – or Fury’s, or Tony’s.

There are some thing she needs to do herself, and yes, it will be harder without the backup that she’s accustomed to, but it’s something that she’s uniquely suited to do.

_I want you to come back to New York. I know I’m not the easiest employer in the world, but people I can trust are...kind of thin on the ground after the whole Accords business._

No, she’s not immune to being trusted by Tony Stark, Iron Man. Just like she’s not immune to the way Steve Rogers, Captain America, is looking at her right now, his gaze fixed on her face as though it’s an anchor for him.

She drags her gaze away.

“Someone has to deal with General Ross, and Tony’s no good at it.”

“Isn’t Rhodes military—?” Scott begins.

“Rhodey is still recovering from his fall,” Pepper says. “He’s not up to running interference.”

“And Maria just recovered from cancer,” Sam flicks a finger against his beer bottle. “Are you so sure you’re up to running interference?”

“Only one way to find out.”

“You’re setting yourself up to fail,” Natasha says crisply.

“Or I’m getting myself into position for the next move.”

“Which would be _what_ , exactly?”

“That’s up to the universe.” Maria looks around at the others – at those who’ve chimed in, and those who are staying silent. Her gaze catches on Steve’s again; she drags it on so she looks at them all. “I was never going to stay around to police you.”

“Just set us up?” Sam inquires.

“Sooner or later the world is going to need the Avengers – all of you. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle – you can’t close that door. So yes, there will be things that Stark can deal with, or T’Challa, or whoever else Stark begins recruiting to join the Avengers. But sooner or later there’ll be something bigger than he can face with the official Avengers.”

“Which is where we come in.” Steve says it quietly, but there’s an undertone that sounds a little like bitterness to Maria. “And you’ll be in place in New York.”

“Yes.”

“And when the leeway runs out?”

She shrugs at Clint. “Then the job still needs doing and better me than someone else.”

Natasha scowls. “I don’t like it.”

“Then it’s just as well that your approval rating isn’t required for my taking the job.” Maria says this evenly, although her pulse is thumping, her throat tight. She doesn’t need them to approve her. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t want it. She’s spent her life working jobs with a negative approval rating. It didn’t matter so much when she was younger, when she figured that duty was all she had and she was going to do it.

Now, it matters. Because the last five years have changed her life – have changed _her_. They matter to her, and she matters to them, and it’s both reassuring to know that they care what happens to her, but also daunting, in that they could cut her out so easily and leave her gasping for air.

Being wanted is a dangerous thing.

Across the table, Steve shifts in his chair, effortlessly drawing attention. “What do you need from us, Maria?”

Maria swallows around the lump in her throat.

_I know you didn’t want me to go—”_

“ _I understand why you had to.”_

“I need you to stay quiet and under the radar. Don’t leap in just because there’s a situation; let the official Avengers handle it.”

“And if they can’t?”

“Then do what you have to – but do it quietly.” She drags her gaze away from Steve and looks around at the others, because she can’t stare at him too long – he’s following her lead, nothing more. “Think smart rather than punching hard. And if you need to contact me, then do it through Pepper, or Akela – either one of them will know where I am, and I’ll be in a place to be able to work out options.”

“And if you’re not?” Natasha is the one to ask that question, quiet and intent with the knowledge of how bad things can get.

And Maria knows how bad the situation could get, particularly for someone who isn’t an Avenger and doesn’t have leeway. But when the choice is between her and the world...

It’s not much of a choice, is it?

“If I’m not in place,” she says, “then you’ll survive fine without me.”

“Is it just me, or does that sound pretty fatalist?” Scott looks around the table.

“It sounds fatalist,” Clint confirms. “What do you know that we don’t, Maria?”

“A lot of things. Nothing that you need to know right now.” Maria meets his gaze. “You can’t tell me what to do, Clint.”

“We can damn well try.”

“And you’ll damn well fail,” Maria tells him. “I’ll make the decision as I see fit for me. You don’t get a say in it – any of you.”

“Harsh,” says Clint.

“Reality,” Maria says.

–

Maria isn’t entirely surprised to find him at the door of her office after dinner, resting a shoulder on the doorjamb, arms folded, as she reads through the mails sent to her from operatives buried all around the world and considers how much to tell them about what’s coming.

“Come to talk me out of going?”

“No.” He doesn’t move from the doorway and doesn’t add anything more to his single response. When Maria looks up, frowning, he doesn’t flinch or look away, just watches her, his gaze skimming across her face.

“Someone needs to do the job.”

“I know.”

Heat tinges her cheeks, stains her skin as Maria realises that he stares at her as though he’s imprinting her features into his memory. Is this what he’s been doing this the last few weeks? Or is this happening only now that there’s a definitive ending to her time here?

“Steve...”

“What does Pryor think of your decision to go back to New York?”

“What makes you think he gets a say in it?”

Steve’s Adam’s apple bobs but his voice is almost steady. “Because he matters.”

 _That never stopped me with you._ But Maria knows better than to say it. Still, she hesitates a moment too long in finding a retort, and Steve’s gaze sharpens. “He dumped you?”

“We ended things civilly.”

“By text message, then?”

Maria drops her gaze and swallows around the lump in her throat. “Maybe not quite that civilly.”

He nods, his mouth tightening. “So you’re going to New York alone.”

“Yes.” Although she’s always been alone, so it hardly makes a difference. This time, at least, going out to do the job, she’ll know that she matters, if only a little. “I’ll be on hand to co-ordinate if anything happens—”

“And if anything happens to _you_?”

The savagery in his voice is unexpected. Maria doesn’t quite know what to make of it, but she answers levelly. “Then I’ll go out doing something worthwhile instead of dying by degrees in a hospital bed.”

The silence that follows is the drawn breath before the storm falls. “They said you were clear.”

“So far as I know, I am. But ovarian cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to spot, and all the scans in the world can’t predict the future.” Maria thinks of one of Lian’s favoured sayings. “We don’t have tomorrow; only today counts.”

“So you’re going to kill yourself by degrees?”

“Does it matter if it’s by degrees or all at once?”

“I’d prefer it was neither.”

She blinks, the retort she was going to make catching in her throat. What she manages to croak is, “You don’t get a preference in it, Steve.”

“I know.” His gaze burns her, hot as a brand. “But I wish I did.”

_You can’t say that. Not here and now._ Not after everything that’s gone before, not now that she’s looking at going back to New York to work with the remnants of the Avengers.

Maria struggles with finding the right words to say – something that will make him back away, something that will allow her to keep her heart intact when she leaves here. Love is a liability for a woman such as her; it always has been, and always will be – and all the more when the man in question is Steve Rogers, Captain America.

Steve is watching her struggle. A smile touches his lips, lightly twisted, like he’s tasted something bitter. “It’s alright, Maria, I know where I stand. You’ve made it clear enough. And I this time I wouldn’t be content with being a body in your bed the way I was before.”

“You were never—”

“Limited time together. Nothing in public. Even the other Avengers weren’t wholly trustworthy.” His throat works. “And yet you sat in Pryor’s lap in the middle of the city park, and held onto him while he spun the both of you around in his wheelchair.”

It takes Maria a moment to remember the day – a lunchtime out and away from the responsibilities of this new facility, Nate’s smiling offer, and the pleasure of holding a man in her arms and letting go – even if the release and thrill wasn’t a sexual one. Being able to trust someone – someone whose secrets wouldn’t drag her down, whose departure couldn’t tear her apart, who shouldn’t break her if he wheeled himself out of her life.

If she’d known Steve was watching—

But isn’t that the problem?

“I couldn’t. Let you in, I mean.”

“Why not?”

Maria stares at him. “Why not? Because you’d have taken everything, Steve – my pride, my reputation, my standing. I don’t get to be second-in-command at S.H.I.E.L.D and have Captain America as a lover. It’s not  _professional –_ most especially not for a woman like me.”

“Leaving out the part where you weren’t second-in-command at S.H.I.E.L.D when we started seeing each other,” he points out with crisp clarity. “If it wasn’t professional to be fucking me, why did you climb into my bed?”

She doesn’t have to answer, but she does. “I...I wanted you. Even if I shouldn’t...even if it wasn’t allowed.”

“You didn’t break any rules...”

“None of the written ones, anyway.” The laugh that escapes her feels harsh in her throat. “I’m a woman in global intelligence, Steve. My decisions are suspect, my judgement is questionable, and my loyalty can be turned by a hot body in a spandex costume. Alexander Pierce,” she says in answer to the question he doesn’t quite ask.

“All right. Pierce is dead. Hydra won’t come at you anymore. You don’t have to deal with S.H.I.E.L.D every day. You don’t answer to anyone anymore, Maria – not even Fury.”

“There’s Tony.”

“Like Tony would care so long as he got to tease you about it?”

“Ross will care.”

“As though it matters what he thinks?”

It occurs to Maria that they’re talking about this as though it’s even a possibility. As though these are negotiations for the relationship that they don’t have and surely aren’t contemplating...

“It’s not relevant. It doesn’t change anything—”

“It does, because I still love you!” The declaration cuts through her protests like the shield edge through rusted metal. Before that certainty, Maria falters. Steve’s eyes widen, too, as though the words surprise him. Still, in spite of the flush that rises up his throat, he rallies fast. “I still love you, Maria. And I’m still _in love_ with you.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“After you ran off without telling me? Probably not.” He steps in, standing on the other side of the desk and places his hands on the edge, his gaze unwavering. “And yet here I am, trying to persuade you to give me another chance. To give _us_ another chance.”

“I’m going to New York.”

“And? So?”

She’s on the back foot and she doesn’t know how to get off it, short of ordering him to step back. And that won’t work – not here and now, not anymore. Maria looks him in the eye. “I can’t—This isn’t fair. It’s not—I don’t get to love or be loved, Steve.” Bitter humour stains her voice. “It’s not in the job description.”

He looks at her for a long moment, and his expression is carefully measuring when he says, “You haven’t yet said you don’t love me.”

“It needs saying?” She makes her words as cool and clipped as she can, but they feel breathless.

“I think it does.” 

“I might be lying, either way.”

Steve doesn’t look away, just shrugs, a lift of one broad shoulder. “I’m sure you could lie to me, Maria, but to get me to walk away, you’ll need to at least make it convincing.”

They’re just words. Once she would have said them and been damned – before she was diagnosed with cancer, before she brought the Avengers to Madripoor, before she accepted their concern and fussing. Now, looking up at Steve, she can’t even mouth the lie.

“This isn’t fair.” Her voice trembles, just a little. “I can’t—I’m not—When you walk away, you’ll break me.”

“And if I promised not to walk away? To dance with you to the end of love? In uncivil argument and continental separation? Cancer diagnosis and old age?” His mouth quirks, inviting her to join in on the joke. 

Her throat is thick and her voice not entirely steady. “I’ve already had the diagnosis, and you’re already old.”

“Fine. Then whatever comes next,” he says. “You trust me in the field; will you trust me in your life?”

She should say no. She shouldn’t hesitate. “I’m going back to New York.”

“I know. And I wouldn’t—I know better than to stand between you and what you think is your duty. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find a way. Phone calls. Skype time.” He arches a brow at her. “Visitation?”

That earns him a choked laugh. “Like you’re in prison?”

“Not quite prison, maybe.” At least he’s smiling. “Look, I’m asking for a second chance, Maria. One where you trust me with whatever happens instead of shutting me out, where you let me help you – where you let me _love_ you.”

He makes it sound so simple – and maybe it is to him. Maybe it’s simple when he can just leap into the fight and it doesn’t matter if he wins or loses, so long as he’s there fighting. Maybe it’s simple when he doesn’t have to think about the consequences because nobody cares who he fucks. Maybe it’s simple when he’s the first responder, not the last defender.

Doubt rises up in her, the unknown future buoying her fears. She wants to say no, to shut Steve down, to close him out, to be  _safe_ from what he represents – all the things she can’t have, not if she’s going to do her job and do it responsibly...

_I know you didn’t want me to go—_

_I understand why you had to._

Maria wants to say no. She just can’t get the words out.

“I can’t be normal—I mean—I’m not much of a girlfriend. And I still have to deal with politics. It won’t—” She looks down at the desk between them. “We can’t be public—”

“I can live with that, just so long as you trust me.”

It won’t be easy. But what in her life has ever been easy? From the Marines, to S.H.I.E.L.D, to managing world security with Stark and the Avengers, to fighting her own body’s betrayal...nothing has ever been simple, and this is just one more thing. Will he be worth it?

Maria looks at the man leaning across her desk, and realises the hands planted flat on the desk surface are stiff with the tension that crawls up the muscles of his wrists and forearms, betraying his uncertainty. He wants this – wants her. And although she cut him ruthlessly from her life the first time, he’s still willing to give them another chance.

“Yes.” It will be terrifying. She’ll probably drop the ball. But if the cancer taught her anything it was that life is short.

“Yes?” He seems a little startled, his eyes skimming her face, as though searching for the catch.

There is no catch – well, not apart from her own insecurities. Watching his expression shift from stunned to understanding to delighted, Maria feels something in her leap, a primal spark of laughter – or maybe love. “Guess I’m just a sucker for second chances.”

–

Steve insists that she come back to his rooms; and although his hand closes over hers as she closes the office door, he doesn’t touch her otherwise.

They don’t meet anyone on their way back up to the living quarters; which Maria thinks is just as well – she doesn’t want to have to explain this just yet. She’s still trying to settle her own thoughts and fears and concerns, and even the thought of sex right now is a little terrifying. Or maybe it’s the intimacy of the hand that presses against her lower spine as he ushers her into his room, the finality of the door closing behind them.

But once they’re separated from the rest of the world, he doesn’t make a move to take her in his arms, just stands by the side table occupied by a drawing pad and a scatter of pencils and looks at her.

“What?”

“You need to be sure—”

Maria doesn’t let him finish.

She likes the way he freezes in the first moment when she yanks his mouth down to hers – as though he’s still not sure it’s real – then he melts into her, his body relaxing, muscles easing under her touch. He kisses like the rush of relief after hearing the all clear; the hunger growing in him as his arm slides around her waist, drawing her closer as she touches his jaw to angle the kiss deeper, so she can properly taste the insoluble sweetness of his mouth.

It’s been a while. Nine months since she climbed out of his bed and walked away, but the way he walks her backwards to the bed hasn’t changed, nor has the warm scent rising off his skin as they shed his shirt. His hands rub at her clothing, teasing skin through fabric barriers, and Maria takes his hands and slides them around her back to deal with her bra hooks while she unbuttons his shirt.

Passion and strength and fiery heat under her palms; the catch of his breath as her fingers measure out his pecs, stroking the lines of muscle, the noise of pure pleasure as his hands cover her breasts.

“Not much there these days,” she mutters grimly before her breath whispers in as his thumbs lightly circle her nipples.

“It don’t care how much as long as they’re still sensitive.”

Maria’s eyes lift to his, startled, and blushes under the slow, knowing grin before he leans in against and kisses her in slow waves of desire that soon turn hot and greedy.

He helps her out of her clothes, then lets her drag his jeans and tighty-whiteys down. But Steve hauls her up before she can do more than lick a stripe up the underside of his dick.

“Spoilsport,” she sulks before he scoops her up in his arms.

“Later,” is Steve’s response as he lays her down on the bed, and eases himself down over her.

Maria’s eyes narrow. He’s being  _gentle_ .

She doesn’t want gentle.

So she crooks one knee over his hip, uses the other to push off, and rolls them over so he’s on the bottom. His thighs twitch under her butt, length and heat, like the erection protruding between them which only presses more intently against her as he sits up and captures her lips with his, tender nips of his mouth, before he starts as she bites his lower lip.

“What was that for?”

“Don’t be _considerate,_ ” she growls, rubbing her hips against his in slow, easy movements. “I survived cancer, Steve. I’m not made of glass.”

He sits up, abdominal and thigh muscles flexing effortlessly beneath her. “It’s not about you being fragile. You—You’re amazing. What I want—” He drops his gaze to her collarbone then lifts it again. “I want to worship you.”

She stifles a spurt of laughter. “Worship? Like bow down?”

“ _With my body, I thee worship._ ”

“What?”

Steve’s mouth quirks in a rueful smile. “It’s a line in the old wedding vows for a man. Even as a kid, I always thought it was...intimate.”

The look in his eyes is intimate. It’s intense. Heat washes her cheeks, her throat, her shoulders, her breasts, her belly. “Oh. I...um...”

“And this is why you need to be sure, Maria,” he says, leaning his forehead against hers and twining their fingers together. “I said ‘in cancer diagnoses and old age’ and I meant it. I’d like you to mean it, too.”

“I do.” She takes a deep breath and tells herself it’s not a terrible thing to love. Her brain knows it in a careful, distant kind of way, but she can feel herself tensing in psychosomatic response. Sex was one thing; this kind of intimacy is...difficult. “Steve, I’m not... I’ve never been good at relationships – not at maintaining them, anyway. And not at...love.”

Maria half-expects Steve to say something then, but he waits, his fingers close around hers. When she lifts her lashes to look at him, he’s watching her, patiently waiting to see that she’s finished. 

“My first instinct with relationships is always to cut and run. It’s not...It’s not rational, but it’s what I know. I’ll try to resist the instinct – but I can’t...I can’t promise I’ll always win.”

“Just promise to fight it.” Steve says, his eyes still on hers. “Fight it long enough to tell me what’s going on – we can face it together.”

She huffs a little, smiling. It’s so very Steve to think of it as something that needs to be defeated. “Together?”

“Together. Promise?”

Maria swallows her fears. She’ll have to face them again and again and again, but she also has to trust in her ability to deal with the world, and in Steve’s willingness to back her up. 

She can do this.  _They_ can do this.

“I promise.”

His mouth is warm and fierce against hers, a demand which she meets with equal force, lips moving, tongues tangling. Hands grip, limbs slip and slide, and bodies yearn for contact and connection.

She rides him to completion, slow and teasing, leaning into his touch, watching him ache and writhe, even as she does.

_With my body, I thee worship._

And as Steve touches her like she's precious, it occurs to Maria that he always did.

–

The wind off the Saigon River is pretty vicious in District 2 of Ho Chi Minh City. Luckily, Stark has sent a Quinjet, not a chopper, because the weather conditions here are horrific for bringing a chopper in safely.

Whoever suggested this place as a good site for a Stark Industries helipad should have his sanity checked.

Maybe Maria needs hers checked too, given where she’s going and what she’s going to do there.

_We can face it together._

This morning, Steve kissed her like she was going to war and he might never see her again. She’ll call him in ten hours when she lands in New York, even if only to say that she’s landed and it’s good. They’ll make this work.

_I promise._

“Look after yourself,” Pepper says, then looks Maria unflinchingly in the eye. “Look after _him_.”

Maria smiles. “I will. You, too.”

“Like herding cats.”

“Isn’t it always?”

They watch as the Quinjet lands smoothly, almost unnaturally steady in the blowing crosswinds. The stabilisers come down, and Maria gives Pepper one more glance before taking the handle of her suitcase and walking out into the wind.

Second chances at life. Second chances to the end of love. Second chances to save the world.

She’s going to do it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a journey! This story has been some eight months in the writing, painstaking, slow, and awkwardly growing with every installment. It's been so difficult to write it these last few months, with life and everything going on, so I'm not surprised plenty of people have since moved on.
> 
> Thank you so much to those of you still reading this, and to those of you still reading and writing Captain Hill fic, even if we've been canonically jossed for the time being. (Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion that if Joss had the say in it, we'd be looking at Captain Hill in canon. But that's another discussion entirely.) Keep reading, keep writing, and stay safe!


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